"Well, I don't know, but--I am afraid! I don't understand books, but I do understand faces, and there is no need for people to open their lips--I might not understand them if they did--but they speak plainly enough to me without uttering a word. _You don't love us!_ Oh! that we had stayed among the mountains, in the cool caves, or in our tents, not knowing what the morning might bring us, but with our own people all about us, ready at a word for anything! There was a sort of pleasure even in living in a state of fear, always on our guard, listening to the very rustling of the leaves. Ah! how can I make you understand?" Mária's thoughts went back to the old times, and she saw herself once again living the old tent life in the forest shades. Perhaps her companion's thought for a moment followed hers, and he tried to picture himself as also living in those far-off regions, sharing a tent with the sweet-looking girl at his side. Something he said to her in a low tone, to which she answered with a smile, "Oh, you, Akos, that is different! If they were all like you, one might perhaps forget all but the things which are never to be forgotten, and the graves of our ancestors. But you, don't you know that it annoys your friends and relations to see you liking to spend so much time with us?" "Why should my friends and relations mind? My rivals, perhaps yes!" "There are no rivals!" "None? not a single one?" "Not one, Akos, for you are good; you honour my poor father in his misfortune, you honour my mother; and my brothers and Erzsébet are fond of you. How should you have any rival?" "Marána!" said Akos gently; and when the girl turned to look at him, he saw that, though she was smiling, her eyes had filled with tears at the sound of her old name, coming from his lips. It was an evening in autumn, and King Kuthen and all his family were gathered together in their largest apartment, where a fire was burning on the hearth, and the table was spread for their evening meal. All looked grave; and indeed, since the time of his first arrival in Pest, in spite of all the festivities, and in spite of Béla's unfeigned kindness, Kuthen had always looked like a man who had something on his mind, something which oppressed him, and which refused to be shaken off. As chief of an untamed, lawless people, far surpassing his followers in sense and understanding, he was the first to see that the polite attentions shown him by others than the King and his family, were all more or less forced. All was not gold that glittered, and his pride was wounded by the sort of condescension he met with from the Magyar nobles, when he remembered that not so long ago he had ruled a kingdom larger than the whole of Hungary.