He changed colour slightly at her generous and trustful words, but he answered without a moment's pause:
'Whenever I am so thankless to fate I will confess it. No; the world and I never valued one another much. I am far better here in the heart of your mountains. Here only have I known peace and rest.'
He spoke with a certain effort and emotion, and he stooped over his little son and raised him on her knees.
'These children shall grow up at Hohenszalras,' he continued, 'and you shall teach them your love of the open air, the mountain solitudes, the simple people, the forest creatures, the influences and the ways of nature. You care for all those things, and they make up true wisdom, true contentment. As for myself, if you always love me I shall ask no more of fate.'
'If! Can you be afraid?'
'Sometimes. One always fears to lose what one has never merited.'
'Ah, my love, do not be so humble! If you saw yourself as I see you, you would be very proud.'
She smiled as she spoke, and stretched her hand out to him over the golden head of her child.
He took it and held it against his heart, clasped in both his own. Bela, impatient, slipped off his mother's lap to pursue his capture of the daisies; the butterflies were forbidden joys, and he was obedient, though in his own little way he was proud and imperious. But there was a blue butterfly just in front of him, a Lycœna Adonis, like a little bit of the sky come down and dancing about; he could not resist, he darted at it. As he was about to seize it she caught his fingers.
'I have told you, Bela, you are never to touch anything that flies or moves. You are cruel.'