Therefore his bearing did not, could not please her, and she allowed a glance of annoyance to rest upon him, which did not escape his notice. Passing him, she went to their son's bed.
There lay the "infant Christ," a boy six or seven years old with silken curls and massive brows, beneath whose shadow the closed eyes were concealed by dark-lashed lids. A single ray from the hanging lamp fell upon the forehead of the little Raphael, and showed the soft brows knit as if with unconscious pain.
The child was not happy--or not well--or both. He breathed heavily in his sleep, and there was a slight nervous twitching about the delicately moulded nostrils.
"He has evidently lost flesh since I was last here!" said the countess anxiously.
Freyer remained silent.
"What do you think?" asked the mother.
"What can I think? You have not seen the boy for so long that you can judge whether he has altered far better than I."
"Joseph!" The beautiful woman drew herself up, and a look of genuine sorrow rested upon the pale, irritated countenance of her husband. "Whenever I come, I find nothing save bitterness and cutting words--open and secret reproaches. This is too much. Not even to-day, when I find my child ill, do you spare the mother's anxious heart. This is more than I can endure, it is ignoble, unchivalrous."
"Pardon me," replied her husband in a low tone, "I could not suppose that a mother who deserts her child for months could possibly possess so tender a nature that she would instantly grow anxious over a slight illness or a change in his appearance. I am a plain man, and cannot understand such contradictions!"
"Yes, from your standpoint you are right--in your eyes I must seem a monster of heartlessness. I almost do in my own. Yet, precisely because the reproach appears merited it cuts me so deeply, that is why it would be generous and noble to spare me! Oh! Freyer, what has become of the great divine love which once forgave my every fault?"