Her duties were soon concluded, and, while the maid was putting on a clean apron preparatory to carrying the coffee to the guests, Kitty went to the window and examined the ring, which with a throbbing heart she took from her pocket. E.M., 1843, was engraved on the inside,—Ernst Mangold. Then she held in her hand the betrothal-ring of Flora's mother. She stood paralyzed by the utter frivolity with which Flora had thus discovered a means of relieving herself from all embarrassment. Hers was one of those feminine natures which master a situation by a bold stroke as soon as it is comprehended, and by a reckless ignoring of all that is unpleasant in the past come down upon their feet in any change of circumstances and instantly take up afresh the threads of their intrigues and continue to weave them successfully. And this was the sister before whose intellectual and moral superiority her childish soul had prostrated itself in timid awe!
The unpretending symbol of conjugal fidelity worn by Flora's gentle mother to the hour of her death had been desecrated by the daughter's wanton hands. It seemed almost to burn Kitty's fingers. She would have liked to throw it far away, never to be found again by human hand; but it was her sister's by inheritance, and must be returned to her.
She left, the kitchen and went into the garden, at the bottom of which Flora stood gazing abroad over the picket-fence. Her back was turned to the house, and her arms folded across her breast, while the sunlight tinged her fair hair through the meshes of the lace with pale gold. The watch-dog was barking incessantly and angrily at the mute, strange figure, with the long, rustling train lying dark upon the grass.
The dog's barking drowned the noise of Kitty's approaching footsteps; Flora did not observe her until she stood close beside her. Then she started and turned round, her face still flushed with agitation; she was evidently in a very irritable frame of mind, for she frowned still more darkly, and her eyes flashed with anger.
"Are you here again, like an inevitable Deus ex machina? Awkward creature, to come blundering in!" she exclaimed, as if there stood beside her not this stately, dignified young girl, but an ill-bred, naughty child, whom the discipline of the rod awaited.
Righteous indignation almost overpowered Kitty; hers was no submissive nature; her youthful blood did not flow so gently in her veins as to prompt her to turn the other cheek to so insulting a reception: but she controlled herself. "I bring you your ring," she said, briefly and coldly.
"Give it to me!" Flora's features assumed a more tranquil expression, as she hastily took the little circlet from Kitty's open palm and put it on her finger. "I am very glad to have the truant once more. It is such bad luck——"
"You are not alluding to any evil omen in this case?" The young girl's voice almost failed her at the display of such incredible audacity.
"And why not? Do you suppose people of our position in life are necessarily free from superstition? Napoleon the First was as superstitious as any village crone, let me tell you; and I, child, also confess to a faith in omens." She looked fixedly at Kitty, as if to defy criticism and to bar all allusion to the past, nay, even all memory of the display on the part of her youthful sister.
But there confronted her now a being undeviatingly true, whose indignant blood was boiling. "You forget," Kitty said, "that you were not standing alone there last evening." And she pointed to the bridge.