The baron gave his name to the lady. The high sound of it, it seemed to him, made an impression on her. At any rate she lost her extreme reserve, though retaining perfect dignity. In a few minutes she took leave, on account of Edgar's having to go to bed, as she said by way of a pretext. Edgar protested he was not sleepy and would be happy to stay up the whole night. But his mother remained obdurate and held out her hand by way of good-night to the baron, who shook hands with her most respectfully. Edgar did not sleep well that night. A chaos of happiness and childish despair filled his soul. Something new had come to him that day. For the first time he had played a part in the life of adults. In his half-awake state he forgot that he was a child and all at once felt himself a grown man. Brought up an only child and often ailing, he had never had many friends. His parents, who paid little attention to him, and the servants had been the only ones to meet his craving for tenderness. The power of love is not properly gauged if it is estimated only by the object that inspires it, if the tension preceding it is not taken into account--that gloomy space of disillusionment and loneliness which stretches in front of all the great events of the heart. In Edgar there had been a heavily fraught, unexpended emotion lying in wait, which now burst out and rushed to meet the first human being who seemed to deserve it. He lay in the dark, happy and dazed. He wanted to laugh, but had to cry. For he loved the baron as he had never loved friend, father, mother, or even God. All the immature passion of his ending boyhood wreathed itself about his mental vision of the man whose very name had been unknown to him a few hours before. He was wise enough not to be disturbed by the peculiar, unexpected way in which the new friendship had been formed. What troubled him was the sense of his own unworthiness and insignificance. "Am I fit company for him?" he plagued himself. "I, a little boy, twelve years old, who has to go to school still and am sent off to bed at night before anyone else? What can I mean to him, what have I to offer him?" The painful sense of his impotence to show his feelings in some way or other made him most unhappy. On other occasions, when he had taken a liking for a boy, the first thing he had done was to offer to share his stamps and marbles and jacks. Now such childish possessions, which only the day before had still had vast importance and charm in his eyes, had depreciated in value. They seemed silly. He disdained them. He couldn't offer such things to his new friend. What possible way was there for him to express his feelings? The sense that he was small, only half a being, a mere child of twelve, grew upon him and tortured him more and more. Never before had he so vehemently cursed his childhood, or longed so heartily to wake up in the morning the person he had always dreamed of being, a man, big and strong, grown up like the others.