“I declare I wonder at you, Anatole,” whispered Longworth. “Don't you know the game of menace and insolence these rascals play at?” And again the fellow seemed to divine what passed, for he said:—
“Your friend is wrong this time. I am not the cheat he thinks me.”
“Tell me something you know about me,” said Pracontal, smiling; and he filled a goblet with wine, and handed it to him.
The other, however, made a gesture of refusal, and coldly said,—“What shall it be about? I 'll answer any question you put to me.”
“What is he about to do?” cried Longworth. “What great step in life is he on the eve of taking?”
“Oh, I'm not a fortune teller,” said the man, roughly; “though I could tell you that he's not to be married to this rich Englishwoman. That fine bubble is burst already.”
Pracontal tried to laugh, but he could not; and it was with difficulty he could thunder out,—“Servants' stories and lackeys' talk!”
“No such thing, sir. I deal as little with these people as yourself. You seem to think me an impostor; but I tell you I am less of a cheat than either of you. Ay, sir, than you, who play fine gentlemen, mi Lordo, here in Italy, but whose father was a land-steward; or than you—”
“What of me—what of me?” cried Pracontal, whose intense eagerness now mastered every other emotion.
“You I who cannot tell who or what you are, who have a dozen names, and no right to any of them; and who, though you have your initials burned in gunpowder in the bend of your arm, have no other baptismal registry. Ah! do I know you now?” cried he, as Pracontal sank upon a seat, covered with a cold sweat and fainting.