“Do you know,” said the Countess Hunyadi, approaching me, “I am half of Madame Palfi's mind, and I shall never rest till you reveal your secret to us?”
I said something laughingly about my incognito being the best coat in my wardrobe, and the matter dropped. That night I sang several times, alone, and in duet with the Palfi, and was overwhelmed with flatteries of my “fresh tenor voice” and my “admirable method.” It was something so new and strange to me to find myself the centre of polite attentions, and of those warm praises which consummate good breeding knows how to bestow without outraging taste, that I found it hard to repress the wild delight that possessed me.
If I had piqued their curiosity to find out who or what I was, I had also stimulated my own ambition to astonish them.
“He says he will ride out with me to-morrow, and does n't care if I give him a lively mount,” said one, speaking of me.
“And you mean to gratify him, George?” asked another.
“He shall have the roan that hoisted you out of the saddle with his hind quarters.”
“Come, come, gentlemen, I'll not have my protégé injured to gratify your jealousies,” said Madame Hunyadi; “he shall be my escort.”
“If he rides as he plays billiards, you need not be much alarmed about him. The fellow can do what he likes at the cannon game.”
“I 'd give fifty Naps to know his history,” cried another.
I was playing chess as he said this, and, turning my head quietly around, I said, “The secret is not worth half the money, sir; and if it really interests you, you shall have it for the asking.”