“No, no, I won’t, Eddie,” the baron smiled. “Just go on up. I must dress for dinner.”
Edgar went, made happy for the moment. Soon, however, the hammer began to knock at his heart again. He was years older since the day before. A strange guest, Distrust, had lodged itself in his child’s breast.
He waited for the decisive test, at table. Nine o’clock came, and his mother had not yet said a word about his going to bed. Why did she let him stay on just that day of all days, she who was usually so exact? It bothered him. Had the baron told her what he had said! He was consumed with regret, suddenly, that he had run after the baron so trustingly. At ten o’clock his mother rose, and took leave of the baron, who, oddly, showed no surprise at her early departure and made no attempt to detain her as he usually did. The hammer beat harder and harder at Edgar’s breast.
Now he must apply the test with exceeding care. He, too, behaved as though he suspected nothing and followed his mother to the door. Actually, in that second, he caught a smiling glance that travelled over his head straight to the baron and seemed to indicate a mutual understanding, a secret held in common. So the baron had betrayed him! That was why his mother had left so early. He, Edgar, was to be lulled with a sense of security so that he would not get in their way the next day.
“Mean!” he murmured.
“What’s that?” his mother asked.
“Nothing,” he muttered between clenched teeth.
He, too, had his secret. His secret was hate, a great hate for the two of them.
CHAPTER VIII
SILENT HOSTILITY
THE tumult of Edgar’s conflicting emotions subsided into one smooth, clear feeling of hate and open hostility, concentrated and unadulterated. Now that he was certain of being in their way, the imposition of his presence upon them gave him a voluptuous satisfaction. Always accompanying them with the compressed strength of his enmity, he would goad them into madness. He gloated over the thought. The first to whom he showed his teeth was the baron, when he came downstairs in the morning and said “Hello, Edgar!” with genuine heartiness in his voice. Edgar remained sitting in the easy chair and answered curtly with a hard “G’d morning."