The moment had come. Edgar, as though mere chance had brought him that way, strolled out from behind the woodpile and walked to meet them, with the utmost composure, allowing himself ample time to feast upon their surprise. When they caught sight of him they were quite taken aback, he saw, and exchanged a glance of astonishment. The child advanced slowly, with an assumed nonchalant air, never removing his mocking gaze from their faces. "Oh, here you are, Eddie. We were looking for you inside," his mother said finally. "The shameless liar!" the child thought, but held his lips set hard, keeping back the secret of his hate. The three stood there irresolutely, one watchful of the others. "Well, let's go on," said the woman, annoyed, but resigned, and plucked one of the lovely roses to bite. Her nostrils were quivering, a sign in her of extreme anger. Edgar stood still, as though it were a matter of indifference to him whether they walked on or not, looked up at the sky, waited for them to start, then followed leisurely. The baron made one more attempt. "There's a tennis tournament to-day. Have you ever seen one?" The baron was not worth an answer any more. Edgar merely gave him a scornful look and pursed his lips for whistling. That was his full reply. His hate showed its bared teeth. Edgar's unwished-for presence weighed upon the two like a nightmare. They felt very like convicts who follow their keeper gritting their teeth and clenching their fists in secret. Edgar neither did nor said anything out of the way, yet he became, every moment, more unbearable to them, with his watchful glances out of great moist eyes and his dogged sullenness which was like a prolonged growl at any attempt they made at an advance. "Go on ahead of us," his mother suddenly snapped, made altogether ill at ease by his intent listening to everything she and the baron were saying. "Don't be hopping right at my toes. It makes me fidgety." Edgar obeyed. But at every few steps he would face about and stand still, waiting for them to catch up if they had lingered behind, letting his gaze travel over them diabolically and enmeshing them in a fiery net of hate, in which, they felt, they were being inextricably entangled. His malevolent silence corroded their good spirits like an acid, his gaze dashed extinguishing gall on their conversation. The baron made no other attempts to court the woman beside him, feeling, infuriatedly, that she was slipping away from him because her fear of that annoying, obnoxious child was cooling the passion he had fanned into a flame with so much difficulty. After repeated unsuccessful attempts at a conversation they jogged along the path in complete silence, hearing nothing but the rustling of the leaves and their own dejected footsteps.