第79章 SALVATION OF A FORSYTE(9)

He walked over to the window.'I must give her time!' he thought;then seized by unreasoning terror at this silence, spun round, and caught her by the arms.Rozsi held back from him, swayed forward and buried her face on his breast....

Half an hour later Swithin was pacing up and down his room.The scent of rose leaves had not yet died away.A glove lay on the floor; he picked it up, and for a long time stood weighing it in his hand.All sorts of confused thoughts and feelings haunted him.It was the purest and least selfish moment of his life, this moment after she had yielded.But that pure gratitude at her fiery, simple abnegation did not last; it was followed by a petty sense of triumph, and by uneasiness.He was still weighing the little glove in his hand, when he had another visitor.It was Kasteliz.

"What can I do for you?" Swithin asked ironically.

The Hungarian seemed suffering from excitement.Why had Swithin left his charges the night before? What excuse had he to make? What sort of conduct did he call this?

Swithin, very like a bull-dog at that moment, answered: What business was it of his?

The business of a gentleman! What right had the Englishman to pursue a young girl?

"Pursue?" said Swithin; "you've been spying, then?""Spying--I--Kasteliz--Maurus Johann--an insult!""Insult!" sneered Swithin; d'you mean to tell me you weren't in the street just now?"Kasteliz answered with a hiss, "If you do not leave the city I will make you, with my sword--do you understand?""And if you do not leave my room I will throw you out of the window!"For some minutes Kasteliz spoke in pure Hungarian while Swithin waited, with a forced smile and a fixed look in his eye.He did not understand Hungarian.

"If you are still in the city to-morrow evening," said Kasteliz at last in English, " I will spit you in the street."Swithin turned to the window and watched his visitor's retiring back with a queer mixture of amusement, stubbornness, and anxiety.

'Well,' he thought, 'I suppose he'll run me through!' The thought was unpleasant; and it kept recurring, but it only served to harden his determination.His head was busy with plans for seeing Rozsi;his blood on fire with the kisses she had given him.

IX

Swithin was long in deciding to go forth next day.He had made up his mind not to go to Rozsi till five o'clock.'Mustn't make myself too cheap,' he thought.It was a little past that hour when he at last sallied out, and with a beating heart walked towards Boleskey's.

He looked up at the window, more than half expecting to see Rozsi there; but she was not, and he noticed with faint surprise that the window was not open; the plants, too, outside, looked singularly arid.He knocked.No one came.He beat a fierce tatto.At last the door was opened by a man with a reddish beard, and one of those sardonic faces only to be seen on shoemakers of Teutonic origin.

"What do you want, making all this noise?" he asked in German.

Swithin pointed up the stairs.The man grinned, and shook his head.

"I want to go up," said Swithin.

The cobbler shrugged his shoulders, and Swithin rushed upstairs.The rooms were empty.The furniture remained, but all signs of life were gone.One of his own bouquets, faded, stood in a glass; the ashes of a fire were barely cold; little scraps of paper strewed the hearth;already the room smelt musty.He went into the bedrooms, and with a feeling of stupefaction stood staring at the girls' beds, side by side against the wall.A bit of ribbon caught his eye; he picked it up and put it in his pocket--it was a piece of evidence that she had once existed.By the mirror some pins were dropped about; a little powder had been spilled.He looked at his own disquiet face and thought, 'I've been cheated!'

The shoemaker's voice aroused him."Tausend Teufel! Eilen Sie, nur!

Zeit is Geld! Kann nich' Langer warten!" Slowly he descended.

"Where have they gone?" asked Swithin painfully."A pound for every English word you speak.A pound!" and he made an O with his fingers.

The corners of the shoemaker's lips curled."Geld! Mf! Eilen Sie, nur!"But in Swithin a sullen anger had begun to burn."If you don't tell me," he said, "it'll be the worse for you.""Sind ein komischer Kerl!" remarked the shoemaker."Hier ist meine Frau!"A battered-looking woman came hurrying down the passage, calling out in German, "Don't let him go!"With a snarling sound the shoemaker turned his back, and shambled off.

The woman furtively thrust a letter into Swithin's hand, and furtively waited.

The letter was from Rozsi.

"Forgive me"--it ran--"that I leave you and do not say goodbye.To-day our father had the call from our dear Father-town so long awaited.In two hours we are ready.I pray to the Virgin to keep you ever safe, and that you do not quite forget me.--Your unforgetting good friend, ROZSIWhen Swithin read it his first sensation was that of a man sinking in a bog; then his obstinacy stiffened.'I won't be done,' he thought.

Taking out a sovereign he tried to make the woman comprehend that she could earn it, by telling him where they had gone.He got her finally to write the words out in his pocket-book, gave her the sovereign, and hurried to the Goldene Alp, where there was a waiter who spoke English.The translation given him was this:

"At three o'clock they start in a carriage on the road to Linz--they have bad horses--the Herr also rides a white horse."Swithin at once hailed a carriage and started at full gallop on the road to Linz.Outside the Mirabell Garden he caught sight of Kasteliz and grinned at him.'I've sold him anyway,' he thought;'for all their talk, they're no good, these foreigners!'

His spirits rose, but soon fell again.What chance had he of catching them? They had three hours' start! Still, the roads were heavy from the rain of the last two nights--they had luggage and bad horses; his own were good, his driver bribed--he might overtake them by ten o'clock! But did he want to? What a fool he had been not to bring his luggage; he would then have had a respectable position.