Page:Heavens!.djvu/127

 that surrounded him, with one heroic effort. He had never tasted as yet either the sweetness or bitterness of standing upon his own feet; always and in everything his mother had stood over him with a sure and steady hand, with a sharp and penetrating eye; ruling him with her naturally strong mind and her experienced common sense.

When he came to see Jenny, and, for the first time, to kiss his little son, he brought with him, instead of the sacred unalloyed joy of a father’s the consciousness of his weakness and culpable wavering; and yet he could not help himself, and thought he was acting for the time as he ought to do.

Jenny was sitting in a dressing-gown and cap on a sofa near the stove, with her baby in her arms, when he entered. She raised her eyes with natural pride and happiness to the husband of her heart, with a look which no poet or painter has ever yet been able to embody with either pen or pencil. The baron, too, forgot for a moment the indecision that troubled his heart, and, hastening to the languid mother, covered her hands, her brow, her eyes, her lips, with kisses; and took his child, who was sleeping the calm sweet sleep of infancy, into his arms.

For a good while he looked at the baby silently. A happy tear glistened in his eye. He kissed his little son’s cheek with fervent joy.

Blushing with happiness, Jenny did not take her eyes from his face. For some minutes neither of them spoke.

The baron recovered his calmness, but a deep sigh escaped from his depressed heart.

“You sigh, Edmund!” said Jenny, half reproachfully, half piteously.