‘I mean, will you answer me if I do come?’
‘Do you expect me to tell you that I am not delighted?’
‘I expect nothing, therefore I am blessed; but I desire very much that you should tell me the truth.’
‘I will do so if you wish it.’
‘Thank you.... Yes, Frau Gräfin, I see and I obey,’ he added, as the countess was perceived making her way to him.
There was some little stir and sensation when Wellfield advanced to the piano. ‘An Englishman, an amateur—nun, wir werden ’mal sehen!’ said one or two sceptics, with a supercilious curl of the lip.
‘What does he sing? English songs—“The Last Rose of Summer”?’ asked one young lady, sarcastically.
‘No, no!’ whispered a dapper little lieutenant, who was paying her devoted attention; ‘he will sing a comic song, “What Jolly Dogs we are!” An Englishman told me last week that they sang nothing else in England now. He was at a party where nineteen of the company had brought their music——’
‘Gott! Herr Lieutenant, how horrible!’ tittered the young lady.
‘And sixteen out of the nineteen had brought “What Jolly Dogs we are!” Fact, I assure you, parole d’honneur! But hush! He is playing his own accompaniment. What! Rubinstein! “Asra!” Impossible!’