“My child!” exclaimed Clara, amazed at the quantity of parcels and boxes, “Surely you have not begged all these from the count?”
“Why, don’t you know, auntie, he’s my Slave of the Lamp? Everything I want he has to get for me.”
“Be gracious to me, Mrs. Delano,” the count said, in his most winning voice. “You do not know how much pleasure I have taken in gratifying the caprices of this pet of yours. Do not chide us.”
“Oh, I will not,” answered Clara, smiling. “But what will become of Min, if another spoiler is added to the list?”
“Depend upon it,” replied the count, “those children have the best chance of being lovely in their lives, who are most caressed and loved in their early days. ‘Spoiled,’ is generally only an excuse for not studying children’s needs, just as parents deny them sugar on the ground that it is not good for them, when everybody knows they require it ten times as much as grown people.”
Clara offered no opposition, for these were her own opinions. She asked the count in, and conversed some time with him. It was a conversation full of charm to both of them, but Clara was at times troubled with a vexing, ever-recurring thought. Von Frauenstein, master of human nature as he was, studied in vain to get at the secret. At length he said: “There is something that vexes you, and you are half tempted to tell me about it; that is because you know me so little. Pardon what may seem a vanity, but I am sure you will come to trust me with your confidence. Nothing should be hurried, nothing forced, among friends. We have a right only to what we can win; and there are some prizes too infinitely precious to be lost by careless play.” He looked at her eyes a moment, and then asked her to play. “I feel certain,” he said, as the music ceased, “that you do not wish to sing for me. I have never heard your voice.”
“You are a magician,” she replied. “You read my feelings so clearly that I sometimes almost tremble in your presence. I have not heard you sing yet, you know, and I much desire it.”
“Do you? That is very sweet. Let me try.” But when he had played the prelude to a song he stopped short. His hands dropped from the key-board. “I cannot,” he said, turning to her with eyes full of unspoken words. “I am under a spell. Will you send for Madam Susie, and let me talk business?” Clara assented, and a minute after Susie entered.
“Oh, madam,” he said, holding her hand, “I have the weight of Atlas on my shoulders;” and placing her in an arm-chair, he took a seat near her. Susie looked at him tenderly, like a divine little motherly soul as she was, and going to him, said, “You are tired. Now, make yourself perfectly at ease while you talk to me. I wish you would lie down on the sofa here, and light your cigar.”
“I wish I could,” he said; “but somehow I cannot lounge in a lady’s presence—not even when she desires it. It comes from my European breeding; but I will take a cigar, if it is not disagreeable to you.”