Then the countess seized the hand of the child-wife and led her into her bed-chamber. On the wall hung a fine large battle-piece, a splendid oil painting by a Viennese master.
"A magnificent picture, is it not?" enquired the countess with a broad smile.
"Yes," replied Henrietta absently.
"How do you like the central figure? I mean the hero on horseback with the standard in his hand?"
"He is handsome, but it seems to me that, situated as he is, he smiles too much."
The countess laughed loudly at this remark.
"That," said she, "is the portrait of a young hussar officer who for a long time paid his court to me. I could not, of course, keep his portrait in my room, for there everyone would know all about it, so I had a battle-piece painted in all round, and nobody suspects anything. Oh! my friend, if women were not so inventive, they would often be very unhappy. But that, mind! is a secret; not a soul must know about it."
Henrietta grew pensive. She also had her secret, but she would tell it to nobody, not even on her death-bed. She also had a portrait written in ineffaceable characters in her heart, yet between him and her stand two infinite obstacles, the one a betrayed star whose name is Mesarthim, the other that unbetrayable thing, whose name is—woman's honour!
"Madame est servie!" cried the epauletted lacquey, and the countess drawing her arm through Henrietta's, led her into the dining-room, where the gentlemen already awaited them.
After dinner the humorous young countess entertained Henrietta for a long time with her amusing chatter. She told her, at the very outset, things that young wives, as a rule, only confide to their most intimate friends. She told her, for instance, how very jealous her little Squirrel was (she called her husband by this pet name) and how he would never take her to Vienna or Pest, because he suspected that she might find someone there to interest her. Anything like correspondence on her part was of course impossible; a wise woman will always have sense enough never to part with a line of writing. Everything else, she witnesses, treacherous servants, for instance—can always be disowned; but there is no defence against a letter which has fallen into the wrong hands. Oh no! she knew a trick worth two of that. Whenever the Squirrel went to Vienna, she gave him a list of articles required by her from a modiste in the town, on this list are set down hats, head-dresses, muffs, and other similar articles. Squirrel always reads this list over ten times at least, but finds nothing in it to excite his suspicions. But it regularly escapes his attention what day is indicated by the date at the head of the list, for he can never tell for the life of him on what day of the month such or such a day will fall. Now at the head of this list stands, instead of the date on which the goods are to be sent, the date up to which the Squirrel intends to divert himself at Vienna. This list the Squirrel in person conveys to the modiste, who communicates with the person whom it most concerns, and the Kengyelesy puszta[8] will not seem the end of the world to whomsoever has a magnet in his heart to draw him thither.