“I would like to hope so,” he said.  But he smiled incredulously.  “I can only say that if you can accomplish what it is in my heart to do, I will go through fire and water at your bidding; and if you are not mocking me, I am very grateful for the offer.  But if you please, signora, we will not speak any more of this at present.  I may be a great artist some day.  Sometimes I feel sure that I shall.  But now I am simply Giovanni Cardegna, teacher of literature; and the highest favour you can confer on me is not to deprive me of my means of support by revealing to the Conte di Lira my other occupation.  I may fail hopelessly at the outset of my artistic career, and in that case I shall certainly remain a teacher of language.”

“Very well,” said the baroness, in a subdued voice; for, in spite of her will and wilfulness, this square-faced boy of mine was more than a match for her.  “Very well, you will believe me another day, and now I will ask you to go, for I am tired.”

I cannot be interrupted by your silly questions about the exact way in which things happened.  I must tell this story in my own way or not at all; and I am sacrificing a great deal to your taste in cutting out all the little things that I really most enjoy telling.  Whether you are astonished at the conduct of the baroness, after a three weeks’ acquaintance, or not, I care not a fig.  It is just the way it happened, and I daresay she was really madly in love with Nino.  If I had been Nino I should have been in love with her.  But I would like you to admire my boy’s audacity, and to review the situation, before I go on to speak of that important event in his life, his first appearance on the boards of the opera.  At the time of his debut he was still disguised as a teacher of Italian to the young contessina.  She thought him interesting and intelligent, but that was all.  Her thoughts were entirely, though secretly, engrossed by the mysterious singer whom she had heard twice but had not seen as far as she knew.  Nino, on the other hand, loved her to desperation, and would have acted like a madman had he been deprived of his privilege of speaking to her three times a week.  He loved her with the same earnest determination to win her that he had shown for years in the study of his art, and with all the rest of his nature besides, which is saying much—­not to mention his soul, of which he thinks a great deal more than I do.

Besides this, the baroness had apparently fallen in love with him, had made him her intimate, and flattered him in a way to turn his head.  Then she seemed to have thought better of her passion, and had promised him her friendship,—­a promise which he himself considered of no importance whatever.  As for the old Conte de Lira, he read the German newspapers, and cared for none of these things.  De Pretis took an extra pinch of his good snuff, when he thought that his liberal ideas might yet be realised, and a man from the people marry a great lady by fairly winning her.  Do not, after this, complain that I have left you in the dark, or that you do not know how it happened.  It is as clear as water, and it was about four months from the time Nino saw Hedwig in St. Peter’s to the time when he first sang in public.