k which
made her eyes burn and fill with tears.

"You are beautiful, Elsa! I love you!"

She could not answer him, of course; how could she, when she felt that
her throat was choked with sobs? Yet she felt so happy, so happy that
never since the day of her first communion, when Pater Bonifacius had
blessed her and assured her that her soul was as white as that of an
angel--never since then had she known such perfect, such absolute
happiness. She could not speak, she almost thought once that she was
going to faint, so strange was the thrill of joy which went right
through her when Andor's lips rested for one brief, sweet moment upon
her shoulder.

And now the lights are burning low, the gipsies scrape their fiddles
with a kind of wild enthusiasm, which pervades them just as much as the
dancers. Round and round in a mad twirl now, the men hold the girls with
both hands by the waist, the girls put a hand on each of their partner's
shoulders; thus they spin round and round, petticoats flying, booted
feet stamping the ground.

The young faces are all hot and streaming, quick breaths come in short,
panting gasps from these young chests. The spectators join in the
excitement, the men stamp and clap their heels to the rhythm of the
dance, the women beat their hands one against the other to that same
wild, syncopated measure. Old men grasp middle-aged women round the
waist; smiling, self-deprecatingly they too begin to tread; Hej! 'Tis
not so long ago we were young too, and that wild Hungarian csardas fires
the blood until it glows afresh.

Everyone moves, every body sways, it is impossible to keep quite still
while that intoxicating rhythm fills the air.

Only Klara the Jewess stands by, stolid and immovable; the Magyar blood
is not in her, hers is the languorous Oriental blood, the supple,
sinuous movements of the Levant. She watches this bacchanalian whirligig
with a sneer upon her thin, red lips. Beside her Eros Bela too is
still, the scowl has darkened on his face, his one eye leers across the
group of twirling dancers to that one couple close to the musicians'
platform.

In the noise that goes on around him he cannot, of course, hear the
words which Andor speaks, but he sees the movements of the young man's
lips, and the blush which deepens over Elsa's face. That one eye of his,
keener than any pair of eyes, has seen the furtive kiss, quick and
glowing, which grazed the girl's bare shoulder, and noted the quiver