The same night Felix heard sobs outside his door, and as he opened it and looked out into the corridor, he discovered Gery, who stood there clad only in his little embroidered night-shirt, and barefoot.
"Papa, you did not say good-night to me. Papa, was I naughty?" sobbed the child, with the morbid nervous excitement which proved his solitary life.
Then Felix took him in his arms. It was a fresh spring night, and the child, who had stood for a long time outside, clad only in the thin night-shirt, shivered. Felix rubbed his little hands and feet warm. Then the nurse knocked at the door, seeking the child in anxious excitement.
But Gery would not hear of returning to the nursery. He clung to his father and pleaded, "Let me stay with you, papa." Then Felix sent the nurse away, and took him into his bed. The child fell asleep nestled tenderly against him, slept soundly and unbrokenly. Felix lay awake.
The opal-colored glow of the spring morning tinged the heavens, and Felix still was awake. He thought of old times, times which lay far back of the Juanita period; some jest over which he had laughed some twenty years ago occurred to him and pained him--he groaned; the child awoke; throwing his little arms around Felix's neck, he begged, coaxingly, "Dear papa, I sleep so well with you, let me always sleep with you." Then suddenly it flashed through Felix's mind, "Ah, if I could only die while he still loves me!" and suddenly the storm within him ceased--all became quiet within his heart, quiet as the grave.
XXVIII.
They passed the day happily together, Felix and his son. Felix bathed and dressed the child himself, with a thousand jests and little teasing ways. Gery had not seen his papa so gay for a long time, and rubbed against him again and again, like a young dog or kitten.
The sky was blue, the earth white with blossoms, the first butterflies floated around the bushes. After lunch Felix drove with the child to Steinbach for the first time, in spite of Elsa's warm invitation.
How warm and bright everything was in Steinbach. It almost seemed to him that there was a different sun there from Traunberg. Litzi received a holiday, so she could play with her little cousin to her heart's delight. Baby gave the little fellow her greatest treasure, a pot of ripe strawberries, which she had to clasp with both little arms when she carried it to him.
Felix remained to dinner; they overwhelmed him with attentions, but still at heart he felt that Erwin and Elsa would have been happier and less constrained without him, which they would not, indeed, have admitted.