“Caro!” he cried happily, somehow having to answer every word with a laugh of delight, so intoxicated was he with the unexpectedness of having someone take him up as a friend. The baron, amazed at his own quick success, resolved to strike while the iron was hot, and invited the boy to take a walk with him. This put Edgar, who for weeks had been starving for company, into a fever of ecstasy.
During the walk the baron questioned him, as if quite by the way, about a number of apparent trifles, and Edgar in response blurted out all the information he was seeking, telling him everything he wanted to know about the family.
Edgar was the only son of a lawyer in the metropolis, who evidently came of a wealthy middle-class Jewish family. By clever, roundabout inquiries the baron promptly elicited that Edgar’s mother had expressed herself as by no means delighted with her stay in Summering and had complained of the lack of congenial company. He even felt he might infer from the evasive way in which Edgar answered his question as to whether his mother wasn’t very fond of his father that their marital relations were none of the happiest. He was almost ashamed at having been able to extract these family secrets from the unsuspecting child, for Edgar, very proud that anything he had to say could interest a grown-up person, fairly pressed confidences upon his new friend. His child’s heart beat with pride—the baron had put his arm on his shoulder while they were walking—to be seen in such close intimacy with a “man,” and gradually he forgot he was a child and talked quite unconstrainedly, as if to an equal.
From his conversation it was quite clear that he was a bright boy, in fact, a bit too precocious, as are most sickly children who spend much time with their elders, and his likes and dislikes were too marked. He took nothing calmly or indifferently. Every person or thing was discussed with either passionate enthusiasm or a hatred so intense as to distort his face into a mean, ugly look. There was something wild and jerky about his manner, accentuated perhaps by the illness he was just recovering from, which gave his talk the fieriness of fanaticism. His awkwardness seemed to proceed from the painfully suppressed fear of his own passion.
Before the end of half an hour the baron was already holding the boy’s throbbing heart in his hands. It is so infinitely easy to deceive children, those unsuspecting creatures whose love is so rarely courted. All the baron needed to do was to transport himself back to his own childhood, and the talk flowed quite naturally. Edgar felt himself in the presence of an equal, and within a few minutes had lost all sense of distance between them, and was perfectly at ease, conscious of nothing but bliss at having so unexpectedly found a friend in this lonely place. And what a friend! Forgotten were all his mates in the city where he lived, those little boys with their thin voices and inexperienced chatter. This one hour had almost expunged their faces. All his enthusiasm and passion now belonged to this new, this big friend of his.
On parting the baron invited him to take a walk with him again the next morning. Edgar’s heart expanded with pride. And, when from a little distance away the baron waved back to him like a real playmate, it was probably the happiest moment in his life. It is so easy to deceive children.
The baron smiled as he looked after the boy dashing away. The go-between had been won. Edgar, he knew, would bore his mother with stories of the wonderful baron and would repeat every word he had said. At this he recalled complacently how cleverly he had woven in some compliments for the mother’s consumption. “Your beautiful mother,” he had always said. There was not the faintest shadow of doubt in his mind that the communicative boy would never rest until he had brought him and his mother together. No need now to stir a finger in order to shorten the distance between himself and the lovely Unknown. He could dream away idly and feast his eyes on the landscape, for a child’s eager hands, he knew, were building the bridge for him to her heart.
CHAPTER III
THE TRIO
THE plan, as appeared only an hour later, proved to be excellent. It worked without a hitch. The baron chose to be a little late in entering the dining-room, and when Edgar saw him, he jumped up from his seat and gave him an eager nod and a beatific smile, at the same time pulling his mother’s sleeve, saying something to her hastily, and pointing conspicuously to the baron.
His mother reproved him for his demonstrativeness. She blushed and showed genuine discomfort, but could not help yielding to the boy’s insistence and gave a glance across at the baron. This the baron instantly seized upon as the pretext for a deferential bow.