Timar turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him. The cuttle-fish drew back into the dusky depths of its smoky lair, poured down another glass of anisette, and considered that some answer ought to have been given. But what?
For my own part I don't know what he could have said.
Timar went back to the reception-room, not only to get his hat, which he had left there, but for something else.
In the room there was no one but Timéa; Athalie and her _fiancé_ were in the next room.
In Timar's face, flushed with anger, Timéa saw a great change. His generally soft and gentle countenance looked proud, and was roused into emotion which made it beautiful. Many faces are beautified by passion's flame.
He went straight to Timéa, who was working golden roses and silver leaves on the bridal dress.
"Fraülein Timéa," he said to her in deeply moved tones, "I come to take leave of you. Be happy, remain a child for a long time; but if ever an hour comes in which you are unhappy, do not forget that there is some one who would--for you--"
He could not speak, his voice failed, his heart contracted. Timéa completed the interrupted phrase--"Thrice!"
He pressed her hand and stammered brokenly, "Always."
Then he bowed and went, without troubling those in the next room.
No "God be with you!" came from his lips. At this moment he was only conscious of the wish that God would withdraw His hand from this house.
Timéa let the work fall, and gazed before her, sighing again, "Thrice!"
The gold thread slipped out of the needle's eye.
As Timar went down the path, he came once more to the two marble pillars which supported the veranda. With what rage he struck them! Did those above feel the shock! Did not the tottering walls warn them to pray, because the roof was falling in on them?
But they were laughing at the mystified child, who worked so diligently at her wedding-dress.
The newly ennobled Herr von Levetinczy was already, not only in Hungary but in Vienna, a famous person. He was said to be a "golden man." Everything he touched turned to gold, all he undertook became a gold mine; and this is the real gold mine.
The science of the gold digger consists in finding out earlier than his rivals what large affairs are in contemplation by the government; and in this art Timar was a past master. If he took up any speculation, a whole swarm of speculators threw themselves upon it, for they knew money was to be had there for the picking up.