It was this time a skein of silk that the little lady wanted to have unwound. This was a still higher symbol of tenderness. Not in vain does the folksong sing of the captive of love being bound with silken chains. "But, my dear, when I was a little boy, and had to hold skeins, my sisters, by way of compensation, used to tell me tales." "With all my heart." "Fire away, then: once upon a time...!" "Once upon a time there was a girl who always wanted to die." "Ah! I scarcely bargained for that." "She was constantly pale, and took it for a compliment when people said to her that she was as white as death." "She must have eaten lots of raw coffee and chalk, I'll be bound." "Don't interrupt, I want to tell a tale, not circulate scandal." "I am all attention." "Sometimes she carried her bizarre ideas so far as to appear at dances in a white dress trimmed with black, and with a myrtle wreath on her head, just as the dead are wont to be arrayed for the tomb. By way of a breast-pin she used to wear a small skeleton's head carved out of mother-o'-pearl, and she boasted that her gloves had been taken out of the coffin of a deceased friend." "Shall I be very unfeeling if I allow myself to smile?" "Pray do nothing of the kind, or you'll be very sorry in a moment." "Ah, ha! I know a man who fell in love with this girl." "All the more reason to be serious." "And subsequently that man got the better of his passion altogether." "Do not be too sure." "Too sure! Why, I have been studying the whole case these four years." "As defendant?" "Defendant, indeed! I wanted to make that girl my wife. Oh! you were quite a little thing then, a wee wee little lass, scarcely so big as my finger. You were learning to dance in those days and had not yet appeared upon the scene." "And you deserted that girl on the eve of the wedding!" "I had reasons for doing so, of which nobody, I fancy, is aware." "They said at the time that you found out that Benjamin Hétfalusy, the girl's father, was over head and ears in debt, and that you withdrew for that reason." "I did not take the trouble to contradict the rumour, it was so like General Vértessy to marry for money." "And the Hétfalusy family became of course your bitterest enemies ever afterwards?" "They have insulted, but they cannot wound me." "And you forgave them for it?" "I never troubled my head about them." "Say that you forgive them." "I don't want to flatter myself. I simply forgot them." "Very well, now let us go on with our story. This poor family has had many heavy visitations of late." Vértessy's face grew very grave.