The painful sense of his impotence to show his feelings in some way or other made him most unhappy. On other occasions, when he had taken a liking for a boy, the first thing he had done was to offer to share his stamps and marbles and jacks. Now such childish possessions, which only the day before had still had vast importance and charm in his eyes, had depreciated in value. They seemed silly. He disdained them. He couldn’t offer such things to his new friend. What possible way was there for him to express his feelings? The sense that he was small, only half a being, a mere child of twelve, grew upon him and tortured him more and more. Never before had he so vehemently cursed his childhood, or longed so heartily to wake up in the morning the person he had always dreamed of being, a man, big and strong, grown up like the others.
His restless thoughts were mixed with the first bright dreams of the new world of manhood. Finally he fell asleep with a smile on his lips, but his sleep was constantly broken by the anticipation of the next morning’s appointment. At seven o’clock he awoke with a start, fearful that he was too late already. He dressed hastily and astonished his mother when he went in to say good-morning because she had always had difficulty getting him out of bed. Before she could question him he was out of her room again.
With only the one thought in his mind, not to keep his friend waiting, he dawdled about downstairs in the hotel, even forgetting to eat breakfast.
At half-past nine the baron came sauntering down the lobby with his easy air and no indication that anything had been troubling him. He, of course, had completely forgotten the appointment for a walk, but he acted as though he were quite ready to keep his promise when the boy came rushing at him so eagerly. He took Edgar’s arm and paced up and down the lobby with him leisurely. Edgar was radiant, although the baron gently but firmly refused to start on the walk at once. He seemed to be waiting for something. Every once in a while he gave a nervous glance at one of the various doors. Suddenly he drew himself up. Edgar’s mother had entered the hall.
She responded to the baron’s greeting and came up to him with a pleasant expression on her face. Edgar had not told her about the walk. It was too precious a thing to talk about. But now the baron mentioned it and she smiled in approval. Then he went on to invite her to come along, and she was not slow in accepting.
That made Edgar sulky. He gnawed at his lips. How provoking of his mother to have come into the lobby just then! The walk belonged to him and him alone. To be sure, he had introduced his friend to his mother, but only out of courtesy. He had not meant to share him with anybody. Something like jealousy began to stir in him when he observed the baron’s friendliness to his mother.
On the walk the dangerous sense the child had of his importance and sudden rise to prominence was heightened by the interest the two adults showed in him. He was almost the exclusive subject of their conversation. His mother expressed rather hypocritical solicitude on account of his pallor and nervousness, while the baron kept saying it was nothing to worry about and extolled his young “friend’s” good manners and pleasant ways.
It was the happiest hour of Edgar’s life. Rights were granted him that he had never before been allowed. He was permitted to take part in the conversation without a prompt “keep quiet, Edgar.” He could even express bold desires for which he would have been rebuked before. No wonder the deceptive feeling that he was grown up began to flourish in his imagination. In his bright dreams childhood already lay behind him like a suit he had outgrown and cast off.
At the mother’s invitation, the baron took his mid day meal at their table. She was growing friendlier all the time. The vis-à-vis was now a companion, the acquaintanceship a friendship. The trio was in full swing, and the three voices, the woman’s, the man’s and the child’s, mingled in harmony.