Staring unseeingly at the dark ceiling she conjured up the scene in the deserted supper-room. Balint’s face, lean and hard, a young man’s face with a thin, straight nose, narrow blond moustache, fairer than his hair which he wore longer than most of the other young men. How shiny it is! she thought, remembering how his head had glowed in the candle-light. How silky it must be! How intently he had gazed at her with those steely grey eyes, and how serious was the curve of his lips as he spoke those magic sentences of love and adoration.
She longed to be with him again and asked herself over and over why she had given up so easily, hidden herself away and pretended she did not long to be with him and sit dreamily with eyes closed as he talked, letting those beautiful words flow deep into her heart. He would be bitter and angry that she had not come, though he could not know — and thank God for it — what her real reasons had been. But why hadn’t she gone herself to tell him, to explain the confusion in her heart? Balint Abady would have understood that he must not expect… Now probably he was thinking that she had led him on only to forsake him. There would have been no real harm in seeing him again tonight, for he would soon have to go back to Budapest to attend Parliament, or to the mountains to visit his forests, or … So why not allow one more meeting, just one, perhaps the only one? Now it was too late! She had given him up and he would know it because she had not come; and she had gone through all this only to throw away the only joy she had ever known. She had never ever… ‘Never — ever’, his words rang in her head, endlessly repeated, as her throat tightened and the tears gathered in her eyes, slowly running down her cheeks and falling one by one on her breast. When she could bear it no more she turned, strangled with sobs and buried her face in the pillows, her black hair tumbling about her head, and cried, one crying fit following another until sleep came to blot out her sorrows.
The clock tower chimed the passing hours but Adrienne heard nothing.
When she woke in the morning the hair about her face and her pillows were still wet from her tears.
Chapter Seven
THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS of the Casino were full of people waiting for the evening’s festivities to begin. Today was the Ash Wednesday Ball. It was already after eight-thirty but, though the dinner had been ordered for eight o’clock, the Miloth party had still not arrived.
Farkas Alvinczy, as official organizer, was looking at his watch every few minutes, for though the caterer had already twice sent word that the dinner would be spoilt if it were not served at once, he was anxious that everything should go right. Five more minutes, he said, but he was not pleased that something seemed to have gone wrong on the last night of the season.
Alvinczy turned to his fellow organizer, Baron Gazsi. ‘What shall we do? If we don’t start soon the dinner will be ruined!’
‘It’s very awkward. We could send word, or telephone?’
‘They don’t have one, but we could send a carriage to meet them. Perhaps something has happened. One of their horses may have fallen and they’re stuck somewhere,’ said Farkas, again looking at his watch.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Gazsi, turning to give an order to one of the waiting footmen. Hardly had he done so when a stentorian voice could be heard at the entrance.
‘What a mess! But it’s not my fault. How are you, my boy? They dragged me here by force! Me! An old man at a ball!’ The big double doors were flung open and there appeared framed in the doorway Judith and Margit Miloth with old Rattle behind them, keeping up a constant flow of talk in his loud voice. The group of waiting young men, with Adam Alvinczy, Pityu and Balint in the lead, swarmed round them.
‘Where’s Adrienne? Didn’t she come?’ Adam asked Margit, who raised her little hawk-like nose and, looking at Abady though replying to Alvinczy, said: ‘It seems she has a headache — and a temperature!’
A hint of a smile hovered at the corners of Margit’s mouth, which made Balint think that she did not believe a word of it and was making fun of him.
‘A headache! Did you ever hear such nonsense?’ roared old Rattle. ‘Just like her mother, never without a headache or a migraine! Got one tonight too. Ah, women! Women! Never marry, my boy, or you’ll get like me, always at their beck and call! Get dressed, they say, without a by-your-leave. What? Sit at a ball ’til dawn, at my age? These old bones ought to be in bed. A coffin! That’s where I should be!’ He shook hands all round, full of life and good spirits, gesticulating widely as with a huge smile under the walrus moustache he continued to shout over the heads of the company who had now started filing into the dining-room. ‘These stupid servants of mine couldn’t find my tails! “What the Devil do you think I should wear, you ox!” I said, “I can’t go naked! D’you think I’ll prance about in front of all the ladies in a fig leaf? I’d be thrown out on my ear! What d’you think I am, a gypsy brat? They can go naked, not me, you ox!”’
Everybody laughed, everybody but Balint who was filled with anger.
Bitch! Flirtatious bitch! he said to himself. Obviously this headache was just an excuse, Margit’s secret little smile proved that. Here he was, the victim of the oldest trick in the world. All over you one day, kick you in the teeth the next. What a fool he was to be taken in! Play cat and mouse with him, would she? Tease until you plead, and then let you back until the time to get thrown out again. Oh, but with him this little game would not work, he knew how to have his revenge and he wouldn’t spare her, not now! He’d play the same little trick on her. He had hesitated to declare his love because he wanted to spare her the problems such a love would provoke. He had thought that Adrienne was different, sincere, true and straight, not to be played with like the other married women he had known. This was why he had tried not to fall in love with her. Well, no more. His scruples had been ridiculous, for this evening proved that Adrienne was indeed just like all the others; and he knew how to treat them! They were all alike, shallow and untrustworthy.
Balint looked around to find a supper partner so that no one should gossip about his heing stood up by Adrienne. Perhaps the little Gyalakuthy girl was free? He would seek her out.
As it happened Dodo was free. No one had asked her and the organizers were just then looking for someone among the young men who were attending their first balls. She was overjoyed when Abady approached her, even though she thought that he had been sent over to rescue her, and putting her hand on his arm she cast a grateful glance at Farkas for having found her such an escort.
They went down to the large Casino dining-room where Abady found two places at the table farthest from the door, sitting diagonally across from where Judith Miloth was sitting with Wickwitz. Their presence reminded Balint of what Dodo had told him at Var-Siklod. When the first course had been served the music began. As at Siklod, it was Laji Pongracz who led the band. Under cover of the popular gypsy music, Balint turned to Dodo and said: ‘I didn’t dare hope to have supper with you!’
Dodo looked at him, astonished. ‘But I told you everybody avoided me, didn’t I?’
‘There’s one who doesn’t. Over there!’ he said as he glanced at Wickwitz across the table.
The girl shrugged her shoulders. After a little pause she said: ‘How is your cousin Laci? What is he doing? I would have thought he’d be here now.’
Balint told her all about Laszlo’s work at the Music Academy in Budapest.
He spoke gaily, light-heartedly, for he wanted the whole world to see how merry he was so that it should not guess he was eating his heart out with misery and anger. Exaggerating somewhat he told Dodo everything that Gyeroffy had outlined to him when they had been together at Var-Siklod, all his dreams, ambitions and plans. Dodo listened enthralled, drinking in his words. And when Balint had said all there was to say about Laszlo’s ambitions he recounted how they had been together at Simonvasar, though he told the girl nothing about Laszlo’s love for his cousin Klara. It had always been against his nature to gossip about such matters, and especially now, when his anger made him despise all things to do with love, he steered well clear of the subject and concentrated on telling Dodo about the pheasant shoot, about his hosts and the guests they had assembled at the castle. Balint did his best to be as amusing and entertaining as possible, but more for the benefit of anyone else sitting near them than for little Dodo herself.