Spero stood at the writing-desk for a time, and his dark eyes were humid. He shoved a brown velvet curtain aside and entered a small, dark room which opened from his study. A pressure of the finger upon the blinds caused them to spring open, and the broad daylight streamed through the high windows. The walls, which were hung with brown velvet, formed an octagon, and opposite the broad windows were two pictures in gold frames. The vicomte's look rested on these pictures. They were the features of his parents which had been placed upon the canvas by the hand of an artist. In all her goodness, Haydee, Ali Tebelen's daughter, looked down upon her son, and the bold, proud face of Edmond Dantes greeted his heir with a speaking look.
"Ah, my mother," whispered Spero, softly, "if you were only with me now that father has left me. How shall I get along in life without him? The future looks blank and dark to me, the present sad, and only the past is worth having lived for! What a present the proud name is that was laid in my cradle. Others see bright light where the shadow threatens to suffocate me, and my heart trembles when I think that I am standing in the labyrinth of life without a guide!"
From this it can be seen that the count had not exaggerated in his letter to his son. He domineered, consciously or unconsciously, over his surroundings, and so it happened that Spero hardly dared to express a thought of his own.
Spero was never heard to praise or admire this or that, before he had first inquired whether such an opinion would be proper to express. The father recognized too late that his son lacked independence of thought. He had, as he thought, schooled his son for the battle of life. He had taught him how to carry the weapons, but in his anxiety about exterior and trivial things he had forgotten to make allowance for the inward yearning. The form was more to him than the contents, and this was revenging itself now in a telling way. The demands of ordinary life were unknown to Spero. He had put his arm in the burning flame with the courage of a Mucius Scævola, and quailed before the prick of a needle.
Suddenly the door-bell rang, and breathing more freely the vicomte left the little room. When he returned to his study he found Coucou awaiting him. The Zouave presented a visiting card to the vicomte on a silver salver, and hardly had Spero thrown a look at it, when he joyfully cried:
"Bring the gentleman to the dining-room, Coucou, and put two covers on; we shall dine together."