ccepted the offer, and promised her dear mother,
worthy Mrs. Meyer, that she would listen to Abellino's words, or to his
sixty thousand florins, which is the same thing; and when luck
unexpectedly suggested to old Jock that he should sue for her hand, in
order to spite his nephew, the girl had sense enough to choose the
better of two good offers, and accepted him. But not for all the world
would I say anything ill of her. She is a lady of position and
altogether blameless; but, for that very reason, I do not see why one or
other of us might not have tried his luck with her."

At that moment several other acquaintances came up to Rudolf, and
claimed him; so he parted from Kecskerey. But henceforward an unusual
air of disquietude was visible on his face, and as often as he
encountered his wife, who never left Madame Karpathy for an instant, an
unpleasant feeling took possession of him, and he thought to himself,
"That is a woman who might have been won with sixty thousand florins."

And then he reflected that, in the course of the evening, Kecskerey
would tell the same pretty story to a dozen or more other men; so that
within an hour's time the whole company would know all about it, and at
the same time see his wife walking about with this woman, and talking
and whispering to her familiarly. What cared he for Madame Karpathy? She
might be as beautiful again as she really was, for aught that he cared;
but he reflected that she might cast a shadow on his own wife, his
adored, his idolized wife, and this reflection disturbed him. Why had he
ever allowed her to make this woman's acquaintance? Flora was so
kind-hearted that she would have raised this woman up to her own level;
but she never reflected that this woman had a shady past, and that her
own good name might be soiled by contact with her.

Of course he knew that it was Kecskerey's habit to run down every one
unmercifully, but he also knew that he vouched for everything he said.
Whatever he said of anybody was never actually false. He did not
circulate downright libels, but he had the knack of probing down into
the deepest hidden secret shame of every one he knew.

As soon as the ball was over, Rudolf hastened to seek out his wife. His
servants told him that she had already retired to her bedroom. He
knocked at the door, and, hearing her voice, entered.

Flora was still in full ball-dress; her maid was doing up her hair.

"May I have a word with you?" inquired Rudo