They passed the day happily together, Felix and his son. Felix bathed
and dressed the child himself, with a thousand jests and little teasing
ways. Gery had not seen his papa so gay for a long time, and rubbed
against him again and again, like a young dog or kitten.
The sky was blue, the earth white with blossoms, the first butterflies
floated around the bushes. After lunch Felix drove with the child to
Steinbach for the first time, in spite of Elsa's warm invitation.
How warm and bright everything was in Steinbach. It almost seemed to
him that there was a different sun there from Traunberg. Litzi received
a holiday, so she could play with her little cousin to her heart's
delight. Baby gave the little fellow her greatest treasure, a pot of
ripe strawberries, which she had to clasp with both little arms when
she carried it to him.
Felix remained to dinner; they overwhelmed him with attentions, but
still at heart he felt that Erwin and Elsa would have been happier and
less constrained without him, which they would not, indeed, have
admitted.
As they did not wish to separate Felix from his boy during the meal, as
a great exception they installed Baby in her high-chair at the table
also, between Erwin and Litzi, an honor of which she proved herself
wholly worthy, as she watched the others eating with great seriousness
without desiring anything for herself. Only toward the end a little
misfortune befell her: in a moment of extravagant tenderness, she tried
to embrace her mother across the table, overturned a beer-glass, and
showed herself so surprised and ashamed at this accident, that Erwin
had to take her on his knee and console her. Felix felt plainly that
Erwin's calm, playful good-nature to the child did not in the least
remind one of the stormy immoderate caresses with which he overwhelmed
his own son sometimes.
After dessert, while the children played in the garden under Miss
Sidney's care, and Felix sat somewhat apart with Elsa on a garden bench
and watched them, Felix started suddenly.
"What is the matter, Felix?" asked his sister, anxiously.
He could not explain himself; he had heard the child laugh, and it had
occurred to him how seldom the little one laughed at home--almost
never.
"Elsa," he asked after a while, "the child is growing very nervous and
timid with me; will you do me the kindness to keep him with you for a
while?"
"Certainly, I will gladly keep the child," replied Elsa, "only you must
promise me to visit him every day."
Then Felix said, with a strange gaze, lost in the distance, and which
she often later remembered, "Yes, I will visit him every day if I can."
A short time after he took leave of Gery, who at first would not remain
without his father, but grew quiet when Felix promised to visit him the
next morning.
The next morning!
The carriage rolled away, and several minutes later Felix returned once
more.
"Have you forgotten something, Felix?" asked Erwin, who stood before
the portal of the castle, talking in a low voice.
"Yes, my revolver," replied Felix, uneasily and absently.
When Erwin wished to go into the castle to help his brother-in-law find
it, the latter held him back. "Oh, it is of no importance," he
stammered. "I will get it--to-morrow. Where are the children?"
"There," said Elsa, and in the distance, between the feathery green
foliage, he saw the children at their play. They flew about and shouted
like little gnomes, Gery the merriest of them all.
"I will not disturb him," murmured Felix, after he had watched the
children for a long time, without approaching them.
He went.