don't know what I was going to say."

She made a little gesture with her pretty hand as if to dismiss the
subject; and, after wondering a moment at the girl's singular reticence
after her previous frankness, Andras thought only of enjoying her grace
and charm, until the Tzigana gave him her hand and bade him good-night,
begging him to remember that she would be very happy and proud to receive
him in her own house.

"But, indeed," she added, with a laugh which displayed two rows of pearly
teeth, "it is not for me to invite you. That is a terrible breach of the
proprieties. General!"

At her call, from a group near by, advanced old General Vogotzine, whom
Zilah had not noticed since the beginning of the evening. Marsa laid her
hand on his arm, and said, distinctly, Vogotzine being a little deaf:

"Prince Andras Zilah, uncle, will do us the honor of coming to see us at
Maisons-Lafitte."

"Ah! Ah! Very happy! Delighted! Very flattering of you, Prince,"
stammered the General, pulling his white moustache, and blinking his
little round eyes. "Andras Zilah! Ah! 1848! Hard days, those! All over
now, though! All over now! Ah! Ah! We no longer cut one another's
throats! No! No! No longer cut one another's throats!"

He held out to Andras his big, fat hand, and repeated, as he shook that
of the Prince:

"Delighted! Enchanted! Prince Zilah! Yes! Yes!"

In another moment they were gone, and the evening seemed to Andras like a
vision, a beautiful, feverish dream.

He sent away his coupe, and returned home on foot, feeling the need of
the night air; and, as he walked up the Champs-Elysees beneath the starry
sky, he was surprised to find a new, youthful feeling at his heart,
stirring his pulses like the first, soft touch of spring.

CHAPTER VIII

"HAVE I NO RIGHT TO BE HAPPY"

There was a certain womanly coquetry, mingled with a profound love of the
soil where her martyred mother reposed, in the desire which Marsa Laszlo
had to be called the Tzigana, instead of by her own name. The Tzigana!
This name, as clear cut, resonant and expressive as the czimbaloms of the
Hungarian musicians, lent her an additional, original charm. She was
always spoken of thus, when she was perceived riding her pure-blooded
black mare, or driving, attached to a victoria, a pair of bay horses of
the Kisber breed. Before the horses ran two superb Danish hounds, of a
lustrous dark gray, with white feet, eyes of a peculiar blue, rimmed with
yel