"The Herr Count awaits your lordship in the salon," announced the groom,
and conducted Herr Bernat into the adjoining chamber. Here, too, the
furniture was white and gold. The oil-paintings in the rococo frames
represented landscapes, fruit pieces, and game; there was not a
portrait among them.
Beside the oval table with tigers' feet stood the mysterious occupant of
the Nameless Castle. He was a tall man, with knightly bearing,
expressive face, a high, broad forehead left uncovered by his natural
hair, a straight Greek nose, gray eyes, a short mustache and pointed
beard, which where a shade lighter than his hair.
"_Magnifice comes_--" the vice-palatine was beginning in Latin, when the
count interposed:
"I speak Hungarian."
"Impossible!" exclaimed the visitor, whose astonishment was reflected in
his face. "Hungarian? Why, where can your worship have learned it?"
"From the grammar."
"From the grammar?" For the vice-palatine this was the most astounding
of all the strange things about the mysterious castle. Had he not always
known that Hungarian could only be learned by beginning when a child and
living in a Hungarian family? That any one had learned the language as
one learns the _hic, haec, hoc_ was a marvel that deserved to be
recorded.
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