When dinner-time came the highwayman knocked on the wall for the heydukes, who promptly responded to the signal, and hastened to serve quite a luxurious meal, but Ráby excused himself on the score of his dining at a later hour. His host did not press him, but so vigorously tackled the good fare, that soon the dishes were cleared completely.
Ráby, the while, had leisure to meditate on the course events had taken. It gave an exquisite edge to his misery to be penned up in the same room with a man he hated.
Yet such a man, since he was still keeping up apparently his relations with the world outside, could help him vastly, and would be a better prop to rely on than the gipsy-carrier: he had simply to give letters to the heydukes, and they would deliver them as bidden. Yet his better self revolted at the notion of being helped by Karcsatáji, for, in his inmost soul, he had nothing but the bitterest contempt for this highway robber, who had been the lover of Fruzsinka. No, he would receive no favours, were it liberty itself, from such a hand!
As soon as Karcsatáji had finished his meal, he turned to Ráby.
"Are you inclined for a chat, Mr. Ráby?" he said, as he lighted his pipe. "Because if you are, this will be our chance to discuss the world in general, and our own corner of it in particular."
"I am all attention," answered Ráby coldly.
"You will be still more so when you hear my story, I fancy. We two are companions in adversity (only you have got over the worst of it), since we are both the victims of a worthless woman, curse her!"
"I will not curse her," said Ráby quietly.
"No? Then you are a man out of a thousand, but I am only of very ordinary clay, I fear. And I am not the only one she has fooled. If I mistake not, Petray is also in the same boat. But the fellow can talk as well as I can ride--which is saying a good deal. And it is that precious tongue of his which bewitches the women. Yet I have more to complain of than you, I consider. She took refuge under the wing of Petray, and meantime the fatal letter she had written to me was intercepted, in consequence of which Lievenkopp and you both challenged me to a duel near the old Zsámbék Church. The end of it was that Petray, as soon as he heard how matters stood, let the lady know some home-truths, so that for sometime they lived as man and wife, though leading a cat and dog life. At last my lady became sick of this honey-mooning, and one fine day she left Petray and came to me."