A Bride of the Plains Part 33

This recollection eased somewhat the heavy burden of his anxiety, and there was quite a look of triumph in his eyes when he once more turned to Bela.

"Well!" he said, "there's one thing certain, and that is that Elsa won't have to suffer again from the insolence of that Jewess. I have cut the ground from under your feet in that direction, my friend."

"Indeed!" retorted Bela airily. "How did you manage to do that?"

"I rendered her a service this afternoon--she was in serious trouble and asked me to help her."

"Oh?--and may I ask the nature of the trouble--and of the service?"

sneered the other.

"Never mind about the nature of the service. I did help Klara in her trouble, and in return she has given me a solemn promise to have nothing whatever more to do with you."

"Oh! did she?" cried Bela, whose savage temper, held in check for awhile, had at last risen to its habitual stage of unbridled fury. All the hot blood had rushed to his head, making his face crimson and his eye glowing and unsteady, and his hand shook visibly as he leaned against the table so that the mugs and bottles rattled, as did the key upon the metal tray. He, too, felt that hideous red mist enveloping him and blurring his sight. He hated Andor with all his might, and would have strangled him if he had felt that he had the physical power to do it as well as the moral strength. His voice came hoa.r.s.e and hissing through his throat as he murmured through tightly clenched teeth:

"She did, did she? And you made her give you that promise which is not going to bind her, let me tell you that. But let me also tell you in the meanwhile, my fine gentleman from America, that your d----d interference will do no good to your former sweetheart, who is already as good as my wife--and will be my wife to-morrow. Klara Goldstein is my friend, let me tell you that, and . . ."

He paused a moment . . . something had arrested the words in his throat.

As so often occurs in the mysterious workings of Fate, a small, apparently wholly insignificant event suddenly caused the full tide of his destiny to turn--and not only of his own destiny but that of many others!

An event--a tiny fact--trivial enough for the moment: the touch of his hand against the key upon the bra.s.s tray.

Mechanically he picked up the key: his mind was not yet working quite clearly, but the s.h.i.+fty glance of his one eye rested upon the key, and contemplated it for awhile.

"Well!" he murmured vaguely at last, "how strange!"

"What is strange?" queried the other--not understanding.

"That this key should, so to speak, fall like this into my hand."

"That isn't strange at all," said Andor, with a shrug of the shoulders, for now he thought that Bela was drunk, so curious was the look in his eye, "considering that I put that key there myself half an hour ago--it is the key of the back door of this house."

"I know it is," rejoined Bela slowly, "I have had it in my possession before now . . . when Ignacz Goldstein has been away from home, and it was not thought prudent for me to enter this house by the front door . . . late at night--you understand."

Then, as Andor once more shrugged his shoulders in contempt, but vouchsafed no further comment, he continued still more slowly and deliberately:

"Isn't it strange that just as you were trying to interfere in my affairs, this key should, so to speak, fall into my hand. Fate plays some funny little pranks sometimes, eh, Mr. Guardian Angel?"

"What has Fate got to do with it?" queried Andor roughly.

"You don't see it?"

"No."

"Then perhaps you were not aware of the fact," said Bela blandly, as he toyed with the key, "that papa Goldstein is going off to Kecskemet to-night."

"Yes," replied Andor slowly, "I did know that, but . . ."

"But you didn't know, perhaps, that pretty Klara likes a little jollification and a bit of fun sometimes, and that papa Goldstein is a very strict parent and mightily particular about the proprieties. It is a way those cursed Jews have, you know."

"Yes!" said Andor again, "I did know that too."

He was speaking in a curious, dazed kind of way now: he suddenly felt as if the whole world had ceased to be, and as if he was wandering quite alone in a land of dreams. Before him, far away, was that red misty veil, and on ahead he could dimly see Bela, with a hideous grin on his face, brandis.h.i.+ng that key, whilst somehow or other the face of Leopold Hirsch, distorted with pa.s.sion and with jealousy, appeared to beckon to him from behind that distant crimson veil.

"Well, you see," continued Bela, in the same suave and unctuous tones which he had suddenly a.s.sumed, "since pretty Klara is fond of jollification and a bit of fun, and her father is over-particular, why, that's where this nice little key comes in. For presently papa will be gone and the house worthily and properly shut up, and the keys in papa Goldstein's pocket, who will be speeding off to Kecskemet; but with the help of this little key, which is a duplicate one, I--who am a great friend of pretty Klara--can just slip into the house quietly for a comfortable little supper and just a bit of fun; and no one need be any the wiser, for I shall make no noise and the back door of this house is well screened from prying eyes. Have you any further suggestion to make, my fine gentleman from America?"

"Only this, man," said Andor sombrely, "that it is you who are mad--or drunk."

"Oh! not mad. What harm is there in it? You chose to interfere between Klara and me, and I only want to show you that I am the master of my own affairs."

"But it'll get known. Old Rezi's cottage is not far and she is a terrible gossip. Back door or no back door, someone will see you sneaking in or out."

"And if they do--have you any objection, my dear friend?"

"It'll be all over the village--Elsa will hear of it."

"And if she does?" retorted Bela, with a sudden return to his savage mood. "She will have to put up with it: that's all. She has already learned to-day that I do as I choose to do, and that she must do as I tell her. But a further confirmation of this excellent lesson will not come amiss--at the eleventh hour, my dear friend."

"You wouldn't do such a thing, Bela! You wouldn't put such an insult on Elsa! You wouldn't . . ."

"I wouldn't what, my fine gentleman, who tried to sneak another fellow's sweetheart?" sneered Bela as he drew a step or two nearer to Andor. "I wouldn't what? Come here and have supper with Klara while Elsa's precious friends are eating the fare I've provided for them and abusing me behind my back? Yes, I would! and I'll stay just as long as I like and let anyone see me who likes . . . and Elsa may go to the devil with jealousy for aught I care."

He was quite close to Andor now, but being half a head shorter, he had to look up in order to see the other eye to eye. Thus for a moment the two men were silent, measuring one another like two primitive creatures of these plains who have been accustomed for generations past to satisfy all quarrels with the shedding of blood. And in truth, never had man so desperate a longing to kill as Andor had at this moment. The red mist enveloped him entirely now, he could see nothing round him but the hideous face of this coa.r.s.e brute with its one leering eye and cruel, sensuous lips.

The vision of Elsa had quite faded from before his gaze, her snow-white hands no longer tried to dissipate that hideous blood-red veil. Only from behind Eros Bela's shoulder he saw peering at him through the mist the pale eyes of Leopold Hirsch. But on them he would not look, for he felt that that way lay madness.

What the next moment would have brought the Fates who weave the destinies of mankind could alone have told. Bela, unconscious or indifferent to the menace which was glowing in Lakatos Andor's eyes, never departed for a moment from his att.i.tude of swaggering insolence, and even now with an ostentatious gesture he thrust the key into his waistcoat pocket.

Andor gave a hoa.r.s.e and quickly-smothered cry like that of a beast about to spring:

"You cur!" he muttered through his teeth, "you d----d cur!"

His hands were raised, ready to fasten themselves on the other man's throat, when the door of the inner room was suddenly thrown open and Ignacz Goldstein's querulous voice broke the spell that hung over the two men.

"Now then, my friends, now then," he said fussily as he shuffled into the room, "it is time that this respectable house should be shut up for the night. I am just off to catch the slow train to Kecskemet--after you, my friends, after you, please."

He made a gesture toward the open door and then went up to the table and poured himself out a final stirrup-cup. He was wrapped from head to foot in a threadbare cloth coat, lined with s.h.a.ggy fur, a fur-edged bonnet was on his head, and he carried a stout stick to which was attached a large bundle done up in a red cotton handkerchief. This now he slung over his shoulder.

"Klara, my girl," he called.

"Yes, father," came Klara's voice from the inner room.

"I didn't see the back-door key--the duplicate one I mean--hanging in its usual place."

"No, father, I know," she replied. "It's all right. I have it in my pocket. I'll hang it up on the peg in a minute."

"Right, girl," he said as he smacked his lips after the long draft of wine. "You are quite sure Leopold changed his mind about coming with me?"

"Quite sure, father."