Under the plea of fatigue, he, who had sat in his saddle eighteen hours at a stretch, and was braced to every form of endurance in the forest chase and in the tented field, sent excuses to his host for remaining in his own rooms until the Ave Maria rung. When he at length went down to the blue-room where she was, he had recovered, outwardly at least, his tranquillity and his self-possession, though here, in this familiar, once beloved chamber, where every object had been dear to him from his boyhood, a keener trial than any he had passed through awaited him, as she led forward to meet him a little boy clad in white velvet, with a cloud of light golden hair above deep blue luminous eyes, and said to him:
'Egon, this is my Bela. You will love him a little, for my sake?'
Vàsàrhely felt a chill run through him like the cold of death as he stooped towards the child; but he smiled and touched the boy's forehead with his lips.
'May the spirit of our lost Bela be with him and dwell in his heart,' he murmured; 'better I cannot wish him.'
'Your little son is a noble child; you may with reason be proud of him. He is very like you in feature. I see no trace of the Szalras.'
'The other boy is more like Wanda,' replied Sabran, sensible of a certain tenacity of observation with which Vàsàrhely was gazing at him. 'As for my daughter, she is too young for anyone to say whom she will resemble. All I desire is that she should be like her mother, physically and spiritually.'
'Of course,' said the Prince, absently, still looking from Sabran to the child, as if in the endeavour to follow some remembrance that eluded-him. The little face of Bela was a miniature of his father's, they were as alike as it is possible for a child and a man to be so, and Egon Vàsàrhely perplexedly mused and wondered at vague memories which rose up to him as he gazed on each.
'And what do you like best to do, my little one?' he asked of Bela, who was regarding him with curious and hostile eyes.
'To ride,' answered Bela at once, in his pretty uncertain German.
'There you are a true Szalras at least. And your brother Gela, can he ride yet? Where is Gela, by the way?'
'He is asleep,' said Bela, with some contempt. 'He is a little thing. Yes; he rides, but it is in a chair-saddle. It is not real riding.'