he had caught anything, he had answered by a frown of displeasure, and the information given in a hushed voice, comprised in the one word "Nothing!" While Gretchen after ten minutes had landed almost as many sprawling little victims, very much to the disgust of Belita, who, standing on the bridge with her train gathered in one hand, chaperoned her young friend from a distance.
After a time Gretchen became aware that Belita was signalling to her with her parasol, and apparently calling out something which the noise of the water made unintelligible. Following with her eyes the direction which the waving parasol indicated, she could see two figures approaching side by side along the path. The branches overhead threw a shifting network of shade upon them, so that Gretchen did not know them till they had drawn quite close. One of them was Baron Tolnay; the other was that black-haired beauty, whom Gretchen had heard called by the name of Princess Tryphosa.
Gretchen remembered that this was the day on which Baron Tolnay was expected back from Pesth. They had not met since the evening of the dance in the Cursalon; and thinking of all that had passed on that occasion – of those words and those looks, which had been flattering, if they had been nothing else – it was not at all agreeable to her now to see him by the side of this Roumanian beauty. Taking a rapid review of the situation, she reflected again that the brigands' treasure was not yet found, even though the first step towards her plan had been taken some days ago, the humble-pie had been eaten, and the Bohemian's services accepted.
Until the appearance of this woman on the scene, she had believed that Fortune, as represented
by Baron Tolnay, was a prize which lay within her grasp, ready to be taken up or left as she chose; and even though she had not yet reached the clear understanding as to whether she did choose or not, the thought had been pleasant, and the doubt now awakened was unpleasant.
The two figures approached very slowly: the woman's silk dress trailed heavily on the ground behind her. They reached the bridge, and turned on to it, and now they were standing, still side by side, looking down at the water.
All this Gretchen, without once raising her eyes, distinctly saw. From under her eyelashes she kept the bridge in view, while to the spectators she appeared to be only fishing. And fishing she undoubtedly was, although she thought very little now about the wriggling white captives within her net. This calm indifference, this languid ignoring of the gaze upon her, it was all, according to her own theories, an advantageous laying out of capital from which she hoped a profitable return. With the net of her golden hair, with the line of her graceful arm, with the bait of her rosy lips, Gretchen was fishing – fishing for her fortune in the waters of the Djernis.
Almost any man but István Tolnay must have found his situation embarrassing. Beside him there stood a woman, and below by the water's edge there stood another woman; and his relation towards each of these women was considerably beyond that of a mere acquaintance or friend; each of them looked upon him as being in a sort of way her property, and each expected from him something, which he could not possibly give to both. But István Tolnay did not find it embarrassing; he had not even taken the trouble to fore-
