We went back to the drawing room. My uncle finished his speech with wiping his eyes, and the three Germans tried to do a little sniffling to indicate a need for weeping violently suppressed.
The Macbeths, father and son, never budged; they gave no sign either of grief or impatience.
At length, Karl, Johann and Wilhelm went out of the room on an order from Lerne, and brought in Donovan, clean-shaven, with his hair greased and parted at the side, and the appearance of a very fashionable young blade, although his traveling suit, somewhat worn, dragged on the buttons at the all-too narrow collar, sending the blood into his big good-natured face. His hair almost hid the scar.
At the sight of his father and brother the madman’s eye gleamed with genuine happiness, and a smile lit up that face which had seemed so apathetic, with affectionate kindness.
I thought that he was restored to reason—but he knelt down at the feet of his relations and began to lick their hands, barking inarticulately!
His brother could not get anything else out of him. His father failed also, whereupon the Macbeths prepared to take leave of Lerne.
My uncle spoke to them. I grasped that they were declining some invitation or other to lunch. The other did not insist, and everybody went out.
Wilhelm put Donovan’s trunk on the box of the carriage.
“Nicolas,” said Lerne to me, “I am taking these gentlemen as far as the train. You will remain here with Johann and Wilhelm. Karl will come with me. I leave the house in your charge,” said he, in a jovial tone, and he gave me a frank handshake.
Was my uncle making a fool of me? Not much chance of being master of a house when there were two such watchers there.