All this time I stood with my eyes fixed on the Fraulein, whose glance was directed as steadfastly on me. It was a haughty look she bent on me, but it became her well, and I forgave all the scorn it conveyed in the pleasure her beauty gave me. My face, which at first was in a flame, became suddenly cold, and a faintish sickness was creeping over me, so that, to steady myself, I had to lay my hand on a chair. “Won't you sit down?” said she, in a voice fully as much command as invitation. She pointed to a chair a little distance from her own, and I obeyed. The company appeared now somewhat ashamed of its rude display of merriment, and seeing how quietly and calmly I bore myself,--unresentingly too,--there seemed something like a reaction in my favor. Foreigners, it must be said, are generally sorry when betrayed into any exhibition of ill-breeding, and hastily seek to make amends for it Perhaps Herr Oppovich himself was the least ready in this movement, for he continued to look on me with a strange blending of displeasure and amusement. The business of breakfast was now resumed, and the servants passed round with the dishes, helping me amongst the rest. While I was eating, I heard--what, of course, was not meant for my ears--an explanation given by one of the company of my singular appearance. He had lived in England, and said that the English of every condition had a passion for appearing to belong to some rank above their own; that to accomplish this there was no sacrifice they would not make, for these assumptions imposed upon those who made them fully as much as on the public they were made for. “You 'll see,” added he, “that the youth there, so long as he figures in that fine dress, will act up to it, so far as he knows how. He talked with a degree of assurance and fluency that gained conviction, and I saw that his hearers went along with him, and there soon began--very cautiously and very guardedly, indeed--a sort of examination of me and my pretensions, for which, fortunately for me, I was so far prepared. “And do all English boys of your rank in life speak and read four languages?” asked Herr Ignaz, after listening some time to my answers. “You are assuming to know his rank, papa,” whispered Sara, who watched me closely during the whole interrogatory. “Let him answer my question,” rejoined the old man, roughly. “Perhaps not all,” said I, half amused at the puzzle I was becoming to them. “Then how came it your fortune to know them,--that is, if you _do_ know them?” Slipping out of his question, I replied, “Nothing can be easier than to test that point. There are gentlemen here whose acquirements go far beyond mine.” “Your German is very good,” said Sara. “Let me hear you speak French.” “It is too much honor for me,” said I, bowing, “to address you at all.” “Is your Italian as neat in accent as that?” asked a lady near.