"What is the matter with father?" asked the mother, and when Vinzi raised his head, she exclaimed, "Oh, and what is the matter with you?"
Try as he would, Vinzi could not say a word, and laying his head on his arms, he sobbed aloud.
Stefeli swallowed her milk and ran out of the room to escape the sight of her mother's anxious face. "Oh, if Mr. Delrick would only come!" she sighed; for Stefeli had noticed that when her father and mother sought his advice, every difficulty seemed to disappear. Now that things were so topsy-turvy, he could surely help.
Mr. Delrick was coming down the stairs from his room as Stefeli rushed out, and when she ran up to him and seized his hand, he asked kindly, "Are you ready to start? Are you coming with me for a morning walk?"
Stefeli had hoped he would ask this very question and gladly went off with him. She quickly poured into his ear how Vinzi had cried till his eyes were red and swollen, how her father had not finished his coffee, but had pushed the cup aside and hurried off, and now her mother was sadder than she had ever seen her.
"But you will make everything all right again," concluded Stefeli with great confidence.
"I will do whatever I can," he promised.
The child's words gave him food for thought. He wondered if the mother's fears had become a fact, and the thought caused him the greater anxiety because he planned to depart within a few days to meet a friend at the Italian lakes.
When the two returned to the house, matters did not appear to be much better. Vinzi had told his mother at last how his father's words had shattered all his hopes, and she had tried to console him by saying he might change his mind; Vinzi should try to do his father's pleasure and show an interest in the tasks he set him. Then his father would surely allow him to return to the mountain.
But Vinzi shook his head and said, "Father will never let me go again. He thinks I find pleasure up there in something he does not want me to do, and that is true. I understand now what he means, though I did not before."