The love of a child of nine for a beautiful woman of thirty! How absurd it seems, but how real, and what a mystery! I swear that the love I had for that woman, love that haunted me for a long, long time, was equal in strength to the love of a full-grown man, with this difference: that it was immaterial, and, as far as my conscience tells me, utterly divorced from earthly passion.
"Now go and play," said the Countess. And Eloise led me away, I knew not whither.
CHAPTER V I SEE MYSELF, NOT KNOWING
But to the mind of a child the moment is everything. Had I been a man, my inamorata would have driven me to solitude and cigars. Being what I was, supper pushed her image to one side for the moment. Such a supper! Served specially for the pair of us in a little room, once, I suppose, some lady's boudoir, for the walls were hung with blue silk, and the ceiling was painted with flowers and cupids.
"Where is Carl?" asked Eloise of the German woman who served us.
"Carl has been naughty," replied she. "Carl must remain in his room till the Baron forgives him."
This woman, by name Gretel, was tall, angular, and hard of face. I did not care for her; and I noticed that she watched me from the corners of her eyes, somewhat in the same manner that the Baron had watched me as I played on the hearthrug with Marengo in the hotel at Frankfort.
"Who is Carl?" said I.