"And what in the world do you read, if you only know Hungarian?" asked Ráby.
"Father has a fine library, and so he chooses books for me."
"Oh! I have a small garden in the courtyard; I love flowers!"
Tho two were silent, and Ráby looked around him.
The whole room was eloquent to him of the past. There, by the work-table, was still the little box containing thread, scissors, and thimble, which he himself had made when he was a clerk. There over the couch, hung a withered wreath of dried flowers which he recognised. Nothing was lost; all had been carefully preserved, even the pen which he had used for the last time in the office, rested still behind the mirror with his name inscribed upon the holder.
And yet they had not expected him; all these souvenirs had not been spread out at the news of his coming. They were, everyone, abiding witnesses to the way in which his memory was cherished in a guileless maiden's heart which loves, while it yet hardly knows what love is.
Mathias Ráby was surely strangely ungrateful to the fate which had preserved such a treasure for him. But it is the way of youth, so unregardful is it of the treasures true love spreads for its unheeding eyes, to be its own for the asking.
But his meditations were interrupted by the entrance of Miska, the heyduke, who came to announce that his worship, the notary, was ready to see Mr. Ráby if he would wait upon him in the bureau.
Ráby rose from his seat, and took leave of his hostess, who accompanied him to the door.
There they exchanged the usual farewell greetings, and she laid her little hand in his shyly, as if fearing the ceremonial kiss. As Ráby took the small soft fingers in his, a magnetic shock, as it were, thrilled his being, so that he would fain have asked the question which was on his lips, the question the girl would have seen in his eyes, had she but raised her own.
And Mariska, too, yearned to ask him, "How long do you stay?" How gladly would she have heard the answer that it was for some time, how naturally would the invitation have risen to her lips to Ráby to come again often and see them.
But instead of all this, they did but hold each other's hands a moment half-fearfully, as if each were afraid of the other's kiss.