"That is your affair, my child," the Frau President coolly remarked, while the councillor looked up in dismay. "You must remember that no one forced you to fetter yourself thus."
"I know that perfectly well, grandmamma; I know, too, that you would greatly have preferred that I should become the wife of the Chamberlain von Stetten, physical and financial bankrupt though he be. I grant you, also, that I refuse to allow myself to be influenced or led by others, since I know best what best beseems me.
"There, too, you are your own mistress," her grandmother rejoined, with frigid dignity; "only remember one thing,—you will find in me a determined opponent to anything like a public scandal. You surely know me well enough to be aware that I would far rather endure great personal annoyance than give any occasion for gossip. I reside here with you, and take upon myself the duties of mistress of the house with pleasure, but I must in return exact an unconditional respect for my name and position; I will not have society whispering and tattling about our affairs."
The councillor turned hastily away. He went to a window, pulled aside the curtain, and gazed out into the night. The wind, which had gradually risen to a tempest, rattled at the window-frame, and in the red light cast upon the bare, tossing branches outside, by the lamp hanging in the other window, the crimsoned snow-flakes whirled madly hither and thither like the tormenting thoughts in his own brain. He had a short time before debated in his mind whether he should not explain matters fully, at least to Flora; now he knew that she was the last person to whom he could speak upon the subject, if he did not wish that the whisper and tattle of society should drive the Frau President from his house. No; he saw clearly that his ambitious sister-in-law would publish his confession far and wide, less from solicitude for her lover than from a desire to prove that her heart, or rather her head, could not have been mistaken in its choice.
Meanwhile, Henriette turned a face of anger and scorn towards her grandmother. "It is solely to avoid furnishing gossip for society, then, that you would have my sister bear herself blameless? She can easily satisfy you. You will instantly acquit her if she can cover her breach of faith with a silken mantle. But indeed you need not be so sensitive upon the subject of scandal, grandmamma: those living in the world as we do, soon find out that society regards many a sinner of rank and wealth much as it does an old piece of valuable porcelain,—the more patched the more precious."
"I must request you to pass the remainder of the evening in your own room, Henriette," the Frau President said, now seriously angry. "In your present mood, I cannot permit you to return to the drawing-room."
"As you please, grandmamma. Come, Jack, we will go with the greatest pleasure," she said, smiling, smoothing with her cheek the bird's plumage as it sat on her forefinger. "You hate those old court-ladies, too; and you regularly peck at the great medical authority, Herr von Bär, and nip his finger, you good little fellow, when he tries to coax you with sugar. Good-night, grandmamma; good-night, Moritz." She paused in her hasty departure, and turned back. "That strong-minded lady there," she said, with cutting emphasis, "will probably pursue the path which her dead father would have inexorably forbidden to her; while he lived there was no chance for her boasted exercise of her own will. He would never have allowed her to break her troth with an honourable man."
She left the room with her head proudly erect, but, even as she crossed the threshold, the tears which had been plainly audible in her voice as she spoke the last words gushed from her eyes.
"Thank God, she has gone!" cried Flora. "What an amount of self-control is required not to lose one's patience with her!"
"I never forget her invalid condition," the Frau President remarked, in a reproving tone.