A year later, in a pretty country-house in Ville d'Avray, where they had passed the summer, a little son was laid in Felix's arms. The tiny creature, wrapped in white lawn, grew indistinct before his eyes; he scarcely saw it, only felt something warm, living, between his hands, something the touch of which caused him a wholly new, tender sensation, and lightly and carefully he kissed his son's little rosy face.
Then remembrance smote his heart, a convulsive sob overcame him, and in a broken voice he murmured, "Poor child! poor child!"
From Ville d'Avray Linda dragged Felix to Biarritz, then to Rome, where they passed three winters. These were still worse than the winter in Paris. Rome is the city of social consideration, a kind of free city for dubious characters. Felix's martyr nimbus had vanished through his intercourse with society in Paris. Scirocco who had been removed to Rome, was vexed with Linda for following him. Her manner of chaining herself to his protection irritated him, but he still assisted her social advancement where he could.
The other Austrians were not exactly unfriendly to Felix, but cold and distant. On their faces could be read, "We are surprised that you show yourself," or even, "We will not turn our backs upon you--we are in Rome."
With the certain feeling of kinship which characterizes the Austrian nobility, they, to be sure, never spoke of his affairs with a stranger, but so much the more among each other.
At last Rome was tired of, and even London, where Linda spent a season and enjoyed her greatest triumph. But one place remained to try--Traunberg.
It was a cool, unpleasant evening when Felix returned to Traunberg from his short visit in Steinbach. Gray and white strangely scattered clouds rose along the horizon, the lindens shivered, and threw long pale shadows over the smoothly-shaven lawn and the yellow gravel. The sun hung on the horizon almost without light, behind a pale mist like a half-faded spot of blood.
Life had never been as hard to bear for a "certain Baron Lanzberg" as on this evening. Slowly he wandered through the large, gloomy rooms of the castle, in which the cold air was as close and mouldy as in a cloister, and where every step seemed to charm a remembrance from the floor.
He saw Elsa, tall, somewhat pale, with the charming awkwardness of her fourteen years, hurry to meet him, shy before her handsome, brilliant brother who, a week before, had won a race--her brother of whom she was so proud. He saw his father, as he smiled joyfully at him, and pulling his ear, cried: "Do you amuse yourself, my boy? Do you amuse yourself? Have you debts? Out with it--not many? Always tell me what you need; I no longer know what circumstances require. You are my golden boy, you are your old father's joy!" He remembered the expression with which the Freiherr had surveyed him, a glance in which a kind of exaggerated paternal pride was glorified by the deepest love, and the gesture with which he had merrily cried to the old family portraits, "Are you satisfied with my boy?"
His memory did not spare poor Felix a word.