"Then only four days in bed," continued the young man, gently taking her hand from his mouth and kissing it at the same time; "and on the fifth to go down to the drawing-room."
"But, then, nothing was supposed to have happened, and if I had not gone down yesterday, Quiñones would certainly have sent for the doctor! On the second day he was worrying for me to go down. But what do you think? He is in love with the baby—quite mad about it! All the morning he has had the nurse in his room. And he has such strange ideas. He says, 'God has sent us this child to console us for having no family.'"
Then the count relapsed into sadness and gloom, whilst a smile of cruel irony played on the lips of the lady.
"And all this time you have never asked for her, you unnatural father!" she said, as she passed her delicate white fingers through her lover's thick, curly, reddish beard. "For you are her father—yes, her father. That you can't deny," she added, fondly putting her face against his so that her lips were close to his ear. "I will go and fetch her."
"But will the nurse come, too?" he asked in terror.
"No, man, no!" she answered, laughing; "she will come alone. You will see that can easily be managed."
The count opened his eyes with an expression that made her laugh more. She got up and, opening the door, she whispered a second with Jacoba who was stationed as sentinel outside. In a few minutes the stout go-between re-opened the door and brought in the sleeping child. Amalia sat down, and told her to put it on her lap. And then, for a long time, they both gazed in ecstasy at the little delicate creature as it softly breathed in its sleep. It was a moment of happiness. The count forgot his fears and became quite calm, whilst a smile of real pleasure illuminated his gentle, melancholy features. The minutes passed, and neither cared to break the blissful silence, nor disturb the intense absorption in which their minds were one. That tiny, unconscious being, that atom of rosy flesh riveted their gaze equally, and bound their souls and lives to her with invisible threads.
"How beautiful she is! She is like you," murmured the count so softly that the words hardly reached the ears of his lover.
"She is more like you," she returned in the same subdued voice.
And by a simultaneous movement, they both turned and looked at each other with a long intense look of love.