The eyes struck him as familiar, and the gaunt thin cheeks, too, seemed to remind him of a face belonging to his past. There was some unpleasant memory a.s.sociated with it, but what it was he was unable to guess for the moment.
He would have liked to ask the little fellow his name, then he recollected what had brought him there and how little the outer world concerned him. He flung himself in a sofa-corner and meditated, his eye fixed absently on the yellow bag which bore Ulrich"s initials.
Then he heard a voice, a low, hesitating childish voice, say, "Uncle Leo."
He started. The voice sounded like one he knew. But already it had all dawned on him. A stream of ice seemed to flow from his heart and paralyse his limbs. He could not move.
And again he heard, "Uncle Leo."
There lay in the timid, trembling tone a gentle questioning reproach which children only use to their particular friends when they consider themselves neglected by them.
Now, worse luck, he was bound to look up. The boy had come out of his corner. With his right arm round the plaid rug, he stood by the table glancing up shyly at Leo with a half-pathetic, half-excited smile.
"Who are you, my little man?" he stammered.... He felt as if he had seen a ghost. Here were _her_ eyes in Rhaden"s peaky face.
"Why, I am Paul, of course," said the boy. "Don"t you really know me any more, Uncle Leo?"
He forced himself into a joyous exclamation of surprise. There had always been a tie of affection between him and the poor little fellow.
He could not hurt his feelings now without cause. His hands clasped together convulsively.
"Warn him not to touch them," something cried aloud within him. But the boy had caught hold of them already, and leaning against him, he began to chatter freely--
"I knew you at once, Uncle Leo. Directly you came in. But what a long beard you"ve got now. You had a beard before, but it was much shorter.
Oh, it is such a dreadful long time since you went away. And I thought when you came back you would sure to bring me something, ... because you always used to bring me presents.... The rocking-horse you gave me once I have got still. But it is too little for me now, and I have got a bigger one, yours is the foal. You should just see how pretty they look together."
Leo bit his lips, and nodded, smiling.
"How long have you been home, Uncle Leo?" the boy asked.
"About a month. Paulchen," he answered.
"And why haven"t you been to see us?" he asked again. "When my other papa was alive you used to come every day."
"I have had no time, Paulchen."
"But you will come soon?"
"When I can, of course, Paulchen."
A proud smile now beamed on the boy"s thin face, the short crooked brows of which had been working nervously up and down.
"But I shan"t be at home when you come," he said, putting his hands in his pockets. "I am going to school."
Leo gasped. "To school? Where?"
"Ever so far away," answered the little fellow. "Wiesbaden is the name of the town. It is a very beautiful town, mamma says. And mamma has given me a lot of lovely new toys, and I am taking them all with me."
"And don"t you feel frightened?" asked Leo.
"Mamma says, schoolboys are never frightened," answered Paul. "Boys must be brave. But poor mamma is dreadfully frightened herself. She cries and cries! Look here, won"t you go to mamma, and tell her there is nothing to be frightened about?"
"I suppose you will be going at Michaelmas?" asked Leo, flabbergasted.
Paulchen laughed contemptuously. "No, indeed!" he said. "We are starting now. Papa and I, by this very train. Papa is gone to look after the big luggage, and I am waiting here for him."
Leo sprang up. Then she must be at the station too! Any minute she might come in at that door. The hideousness of the situation, which, in listening to the boy"s pretty talk, he had almost forgotten, broke on him afresh.
He clutched at his cap. Like a thief, he must slink away by the side door.
"Are you going so soon, Uncle Leo?" the child asked anxiously.
"I must, Paulchen."
"And aren"t you going to say good-bye to me?"
An irresistible impulse seized him. He caught up the boy in his arms with warmth, murmuring inarticulate words over him. He felt the childish lips pressing against his cheeks caressingly.
He trembled; and then the door opened, and not she whom he expected, but Ulrich came in. He let go of the boy, and seemed to himself as if he were a criminal discovered in an act of desecration. Yet when he saw Ulrich"s look of dismay and reproach, he went to him quickly, and, taking his hand, said in a low voice--
"Don"t be angry, and don"t reproach me. It was pure chance. I did not even recognise him when I first came in and found him sitting here. I could not run away when he came and spoke to me. I have bid him good-bye, and in secret asked him to forgive me. There is nothing wrong in that?"
"No, nothing wrong," agreed Ulrich; "that is true."
Leo now noticed that he looked even a shade more wretched and worn than on that evening when he had paid him his farewell visit. His breath was short, his eyes burned in their blue hollows.
"You are not well, my dear old fellow?" Leo inquired. Had he not known by experience the tenacity of Ulrich"s const.i.tution, he would have had the gravest fears.
"I have been much worried." Then, looking at his step-son, he added questioningly, "You know?"
Leo nodded.
Ulrich stroked the small smooth head of the boy, whose closely cropped brown hair grew in two half-circles low on his thoughtful forehead.
"Have you said good-bye to Wilhelm?" he asked.
No; he had forgotten to do that.
Ulrich looked at the clock. There were still ten minutes before the train was due. "Run along, then," he said, "and when it"s time I will fetch you."
The boy ran out, slightly dragging one leg, a habit of delicate children.
Ulrich looked after him with a smile full of sad, anxious tenderness.
"It will be hard for me to part with him," he said; "he was about all I had."
"Must it be?" asked Leo, to whom the suddenly made plan, of which there had been no hint a month ago, seemed not a little extraordinary.
Ulrich nodded, wrinkling his forehead. "Yes, it must," he said. "I should never have consented to it, of course, perhaps simply from selfish reasons, if I had had the right to decide over the child"s future. But he is _hers_, and she wishes it."
"She is not here?" asked Leo, again betraying uneasiness.