THE TRIO
The plan, as appeared only an hour later, proved to be excellent. It
worked without a hitch. The baron chose to be a little late in entering
the dining-room, and when Edgar saw him, he jumped up from his seat and
gave him an eager nod and a beatific smile, at the same time pulling his
mother's sleeve, saying something to her hastily, and pointing
conspicuously to the baron.
His mother reproved him for his demonstrativeness. She blushed and
showed genuine discomfort, but could not help yielding to the boy's
insistence and gave a glance across at the baron. This the baron
instantly seized upon as the pretext for a deferential bow.
The acquaintance was made. The lady had to acknowledge his bow. Yet
from now on she kept her head bent still lower over her plate and
throughout the rest of the meal sedulously avoided looking over at the
baron again.
Not so Edgar. Every minute or two he turned his eyes on the baron, and
once he even tried to speak to him across the two tables, an impropriety
which his mother promptly checked with a severe rebuke. As soon as
dinner was over, Edgar was told he must go straight to bed, and an eager
whispering began between him and his mother, which resulted in a
concession to the boy. He was allowed to go to the baron and say
good-night to him. The baron said a few kind words and so set the
child's eyes ablaze again.
Here the baron rose and in his adroit way, as if it were the most
natural thing in the world, stepped over to the other table and
congratulated his neighbor upon her bright, intelligent son. He told
her what a pleasant time he had spent with him that morning--Edgar
beamed--and then inquired about the boy's health. On this point he asked
so many detailed questions that the mother was compelled to reply, and
so was drawn irresistibly into a conversation. Edgar listened to it all
in a sort of rapturous awe.
The baron gave his name to the lady. The high sound of it, it seemed to
him, made an impression on her. At any rate she lost her extreme
reserve, though retaining perfect dignity.
In a few minutes she took leave, on account of Edgar's having to go to
bed, as she said by way of a pretext.
Edgar protested he was not sleepy and would be happy to stay up the
whole night. But his mother remained obdurate and held out her hand by
way of good-night to the baron, who shook hands with her most
respectfully.
Edgar did not sleep well that night. A chaos of happiness and childish
despair filled his soul. Something new had come to him that day. For the
first time he had played a part in the life of adults. In his half-awake
state he forgot that he was a child and all at once felt himself a grown
man. Brought up an only child and often ailing, he had never had many
friends. His parents, who paid little attention to him, and the servants
had been the only ones to meet his craving for tenderness.
The power of love is not properly gauged if it is estimated only by the
object that inspires it, if the tension preceding it is not taken into
account--that gloomy space of disillusionment and loneliness which
stretches in front of all the great events of the heart.
In Edgar there had been a heavily fraught, unexpended emotion lying in
wait, which now burst out and rushed to meet the first human being who
seemed to deserve it. He lay in the dark, happy and dazed. He wanted to
laugh, but had to cry. For he loved the baron as he had never loved
friend, father, mother, or even God. All the immature passion of his
ending boyhood wreathed itself about his mental vision of the man whose
very name had been unknown to him a few hours before.
He was wise enough not to be disturbed by the peculiar, unexpected way
in which the new friendship had been formed. What troubled him was the
sense of his own unworthiness and insignificance. "Am I fit company for
him?" he plagued himself. "I, a little boy, twelve years old, who has to
go to school still and am sent off to bed at night before anyone else?
What can I mean to him, what have I to offer him?"
The painful sense of his impotence to show his feelings in some way or
other made him most unhappy. On other occasions, when he had taken a
liking for a boy, the first thing he had done was to offer to share his
stamps and marbles and jacks. Now such childish possessions, which only
the day before had still had vast importance and charm in his eyes, had
depreciated in value. They seemed silly. He disdained them. He couldn't
offer such things to his new friend. What possible way was there for him
to express his feelings? The sense that he was small, only half a being,
a mere child of twelve, grew upon him and tortured him more and more.
Never before had he so vehemently cursed his childhood, or longed so
heartily to wake up in the morning the person he had always dreamed of
being, a man, big and strong, grown up like the others.
His restless thoughts were mixed with the first bright dreams of the new
world of manhood. Finally he fell asleep with a smile on his lips, but
his sleep was constantly broken by the anticipation of the next
morning's appointment. At seven o'clock he awoke with a start, fearful
that he was too late already. He dressed hastily and astonished his
mother when he went in to say good-morning because she had always had
difficulty getting him out of bed. Before she could question him he was
out of her room again.
With only the one thought in his mind, not to keep his friend waiting,
he dawdled about downstairs in the hotel, even forgetting to eat
breakfast.
At half-past nine the baron came sauntering down the lobby with his easy
air and no indication that anything had been troubling _him_. He, of
course, had completely forgotten the appointment for a walk, but he
acted as though he were quite ready to keep his promise when the boy
came rushing at him so eagerly. He took Edgar's arm and paced up and
down the lobby with him leisurely. Edgar was radiant, although the
baron gently but firmly refused to start on the walk at once. He seemed
to be waiting for something. Every once in a while he gave a nervous
glance at one of the various doors. Suddenly he drew himself up. Edgar's
mother had entered the hall.
She responded to the baron's greeting and came up to him with a pleasant
expression on her face. Edgar had not told her about the walk. It was
too precious a thing to talk about. But now the baron mentioned it and
she smiled in approval. Then he went on to invite her to come along, and
she was not slow in accepting.
That made Edgar sulky. He gnawed at his lips. How provoking of his
mother to have come into the lobby just then! The walk belonged to him
and him alone. To be sure, he had introduced his friend to his mother,
but only out of courtesy. He had not meant to share him with anybody.
Something like jealousy began to stir in him when he observed the
baron's friendliness to his mother.
On the walk the dangerous sense the child had of his importance and
sudden rise to prominence was heightened by the interest the two adults
showed in him. He was almost the exclusive subject of their
conversation. His mother expressed rather hypocritical solicitude on
account of his pallor and nervousness, while the baron kept saying it
was nothing to worry about and extolled his young "friend's" good
manners and pleasant ways.
It was the happiest hour of Edgar's life. Rights were granted him that
he had never before been allowed. He was permitted to take part in the
conversation without a prompt "keep quiet, Edgar." He could even express
bold desires for which he would have been rebuked before. No wonder the
deceptive feeling that he was grown up began to flourish in his
imagination. In his bright dreams childhood already lay behind him like
a suit he had outgrown and cast off.
At the mother's invitation, the baron took his mid day meal at their
table. She was growing friendlier all the time. The vis-à-vis was now a
companion, the acquaintanceship a friendship. The trio was in full
swing, and the three voices, the woman's, the man's and the child's,
mingled in harmony.