"How sentimental!" said Uncle Paul, adding, after a while, "If the little wretches only had wings, they might pass for angels, but as they are they leave something to be desired." Then, putting down the vase, he told me to be a good girl (he had just brought me over to stay a little while at Komaritz), got into his dog-cart, and drove off.
Scarcely had the door closed behind him when Harry brought from the next room a long quill pen and a large inkstand, and went to work eagerly and mysteriously at the vase.
At about five in the afternoon all assembled for afternoon coffee. Finally Herr Schmied appeared, a book in his hand.
"What are you doing there?" he asked his pupil, unsuspectingly.
"I am giving these naughty boys swimming-breeches, Herr Schmied. Uncle Paul thought it hardly the thing for you to have presented this vase to a lady, and so----"
The sentence was never finished. There was a low laugh from the other end of the room, where Mademoiselle Duval, ensconced behind the coffee-equipage, had been an unobserved spectator of the scene. Herr Schmied flushed crimson, and, quite losing his usual self-control, he gave Harry a sounding box on the ear, and Harry--well, Harry returned it.
Herr Schmied seized him by the shoulders as if to shake and strike him, then bit his lip, drew a long breath, released the boy, and left the room. But Harry's head drooped upon his breast, and he ate no supper that night. He knew that what had occurred could not be condoned, and he was sorry.
At supper Herr Schmied informed Mademoiselle Duval that he had written to Baron Leskjewitsch that unforeseen circumstances made imperative his return to Germany. "I did not think it necessary to be more explicit as to the true cause of my sudden departure," he added.
Harry grew very pale.
After supper, as I was sitting with Heda upon the garden-steps, looking for falling stars that would not fall, we observed Herr Schmied enter the room behind us; it was quite empty, but the lamp was lighted on the table. Soon afterwards, Harry appeared. Neither of them noticed us.