'I should ask your pardon. My cousin would be the first to condemn my words; they sounded ill, but I meant them literally. Hohenszalras has been one of my homes from boyhood; it will be your son's when we are both dead. How like he is to you; he has nothing of his mother.'
Sabran, somewhat surprised, smiled as he answered:
'He is very like me. I regret it; but you know the poets and the physiologists are for once agreed as to the cause of that. It is a truth proved a million times: _l'enfant de l'amour ressemble toujours au père._'
Egon Vàsàrhely grew white under the olive hue of his sun-bronzed cheek. The _riposte_ had been made with a thrust that went home. Otto at that moment approached his master for orders for the morrow. They were no more alone. They entered the house; the long and ceremonious dinner succeeded. Vàsàrhely was silent and stern. Sabran was the most brilliant of hosts, the happiest of men; all the women present were in love with him, his wife the most of all.
'Réné tells me you will stay, Egon. I am so very glad,' his cousin said to him during the evening, and she added with a little hesitation, 'If you would take time to know him well, you would find him so worthy of your regard; he has all the qualities that most men esteem in each other. It would make me so happy if you were friends at heart, not only in mere courtesy.'
'You know that can never be,' said Vàsàrhely, almost rudely. 'Even you cannot work miracles. He is your husband. It is a reason that I should respect him, but it is also a reason why I shall for ever hate him.'
He said the last words in a tone scarcely audible, but low as it was, there was a force in it that affected her painfully.
'What you say there is quite unworthy of you,' she said with gentleness but coldness. 'He has done you no wrong. Long ere I met him I told you that what you wished was not what I wished, never would be so. You are too great a gentleman, Egon, to nourish an injustice in your heart.'
He looked down; every fibre in him thrilled and burned under the sound of her voice, the sense of her presence.
'I saw your children asleep last night,' he said abruptly. 'They have nothing of you in them; they are his image.'
'Is it so unusual for children to resemble their father?' she said with a smile, whilst vaguely disquieted by his tone.