The night-nurse rose from her seat, recognising Prince Egon, whom she had known from his childhood.
'The little Count is so like the Marquis,' she said, approaching; 'so is Herr Gela. Ah, my Prince, you remember the noble gentlemen whose names they bear? God send they may be like them in their lives and not their deaths!'
'An early death is good,' said Vàsàrhely, as he stood beside the child's bed. He thought how good it would have been if he had fallen at Sadowa or Königsgrätz, or earlier by the side of Gela and Victor, charging with his White Hussars.
The old nurse rambled on, full of praise and stories of the children's beauty, and strength, and activity, and intelligence. Vàsàrhely did not hear her; he stood lost in thought looking down on the sleeping figure of Bela, who, as if conscious of strange eyes upon him, moved uneasily in his slumber, and ruffled his golden hair with his hands, and thrust off his coverings from his beautiful round white limbs.
'Count Bela is not like our saint who died,' said the old nurse. 'He is always masterful, and loves his own way. My lady is strict with him, and wisely so, for he is a proud rebellious child. But he is very generous, and has noble ways. Count Gela is a little angel; he will be like the Heilige Graf.'
Vàsàrhely did not hear anything she said. His gaze was bent on the sleeping child, studying the lines of the delicate brows, of the curving lips, of the long black lashes. It was so familiar, so familiar! Suddenly as he gazed a light seemed to leap out of the darkness of long forgotten years, and the memory which had haunted him stood out clear before him.
'He is like Vassia Kazán!' he cried, half aloud. The face of the child had recalled what in the face of the man had for ever eluded his remembrance.
He thrust a gold coin in the nurse's hand, and hurried from the chamber. A sudden inconceivable, impossible suspicion had leaped up before him as he had gazed on the sleeping loveliness of Sabran's little son.
The old woman saw his sudden pallor, his uncertain gesture, and thought, 'Poor gallant gentleman! He wishes these pretty boys were his own. Well, it might have been better if he had been master here, though there is nothing to say against the one who is so. Still, a stranger is always a stranger, and foreign blood is bad.'
Then she drew the coverings over Bela's naked little limbs, and passed on to make sure that the little Ottilie, who had been born when the primroses where first out in the Iselthal woods, was sleeping soundly, and wanted nothing.