"Yes, but then...." began Fritz.
"Now be quiet," Oswald ordered, "the best thing for you to do would be to lie down for a while, and we will do our best to entertain you without making you laugh."
"Thanks," said Fritz, "but I .... I should like to say something to you. When a man stands on the brink of the grave...."
"Aha, you are posing again as an interesting invalid," Oswald rallied him; "well--Georges, go down stairs and pay your respects to Pipsi, there's a good fellow; I hear her chattering with her little brother beneath the window;--I know how pleased Fritz is with your visit, but, just now, you are a little in the way."
Georges laughed, and withdrew bowing low.
They were left alone in the long, low room; against the windows the leaves of the old apricot-trees rustled dreamily, and the air was fragrant with the scent of the last flowers of summer. The portraits of Fritz's parents and of their Imperial Majesties looked down from the wall, their outlines rather vague in the darkened apartment, and on the old door-jamb, scored with the children's names a prismatic sunbeam was playing.
"Now tell me, Fritz, what is the matter? You know there is no need of any beating about the bush between us," said Oswald leaning towards the sick man, "speak low, I can hear you."
Fritz fixed his gaze upon the door-jamb where among the old names two new ones had been written, 'Pipsi five, Franzi three years old.' "God knows, I have no reason to cling to life," he said with a sigh, "and yet my heart is sore at the thought that next year I shall--make no mark there!--Poor children!--who will care for them when I am gone?" His voice broke, and it was with difficulty that he kept back the tears. "I have taken a great deal of pains with them, and hitherto they have been good little things,--at least so they seem to me ...."
"Your children are charming," was Oswald's warm assurance.
"Are they not?" gasped Fritz, and his hollow eyes sparkled, "but they are still so little--when I am dead they will run wild. Capriani will not let them starve--assuredly not; but how will he provide for them?--and my wife agrees with him in everything--that is the worst of it;--Ossi, in my will I have expressed a wish that my children should be separated from their mother. She does not care for them very much; I think she would be glad to be rid of the burden of bringing them up .... and I have begged you--you will not take it ill of me, Ossi,...." he hesitated.