And without vouchsafing her another word or look, without deigning to see her safely on her way back to the barn, he turned leisurely on his heel, and mounting the steps of the verandah before him, he presently pushed open the tap-room door and disappeared within.
Elsa stood for a moment quite still there in the dark, with the silence of the night and all its sweet sounds encompassing her, and the scent of withered flowers and slowly-dying leaves mounting to her quivering nostrils.
What did it all mean? What did life mean? And what was the meaning of God? She, the ignorant, unsophisticated peasant girl, knew nothing save what Pater Bonifácius had taught her, and that was little enough--though the little was hard enough to learn.
Resignation to God's will; obedience to parents first and to husband afterwards; renunciation of all that made the days appear like a continual holiday and filled the nights with exquisite dreams!
But if life only meant that, only meant duty and obedience and resignation, then why had God made such a beautiful world, why had He made the sky and the birds and the flowers, the nodding plumes of maize and the tiny, fleecy clouds which people the firmament at sunset?
Was it worth while to deck this world in such array if the eyes of men were always to be filled with tears, and their backs bent to their ever-recurring tasks?
A heavy sigh escaped from the girl's overburdened heart: the riddle of the universe was too hard an one for her simple mind to solve. Perhaps it was best after all not to think of these things which she was too ignorant to understand. She looked at the door of the tavern through which Béla had gone. He had left it wide open, and she caught a glimpse of him now as he sat at one of the tables, and leaning his elbow on it, rested his chin in his hand.
Then, with another little sigh, she was just turning to go when the sound of her name spoken in a whisper and quite close to her sent her pulses quivering and made her heart beat furiously.
"Yes. I came up just now and heard your voice and Béla's. I waited on the off-chance of getting a word with you."
"I mustn't stop, Andor. Mother will be wondering."
"No, she won't," he retorted with undisguised bitterness. "The mother who sent you on this abominable and humiliating errand won't worry much after you."