Flora laughed angrily. "This comes of having one's footsteps dogged by a younger sister. In the true school-girl fashion, she puts on an air of confidential familiarity, and delights in hinting at what were best gone and forgotten. Did you not hear me say just now that the adventure of yesterday in the forest so shattered my nerves that I could not be responsible for anything that occurred afterwards? I suppose, my esteemed Kitty, that, in your profound sagacity, you would remind me that I cannot connect any omen with my betrothal-ring because—well, because it lies at the bottom of the river. Eh, my dear?" Again she laughed. "What if, in spite of my agitation and confusion of mind, my indignation at an unjust and prejudiced criticism that had just been launched at me, I had yielded to a feeling of compunction, and had not thrown away my precious jewel? Did you hear the ring drop, child? Certainly not! for here it is," and she turned the ring about on her finger, "after having really been upon the point of leaving me of its own accord——"
"Because it is too large for you. Your fingers are more slender than your mother's were," Kitty sternly interrupted her.
Flora raised her hand in menace. "Viper!" she muttered, between her teeth. "In the first moment that I saw you I felt, I knew, that your clumsy person would cast an ugly shadow upon my life! How dare you undertake to play the spy upon me? Upon me? These honourable principles are the fine effects of the teachings of your excellent Lukas!"
"No need to mention my Lukas!" said Kitty, who opposed a perfectly calm demeanour to this passionate outburst. "My education has had nothing to do with my mode of thought and action in this instance. These 'honourable principles' I inherit from a good father. I detest deceit, and would rather die than call falsehood truth. You may be able to silence those about you by your treacherous audacity, and thus make them accomplices in your deceit, but this you cannot do with me, young and inexperienced though I be. I am not to be blinded: I have excellent eyes and a good memory——"
"Very sound natural endowments; hardly to be equalled by any one gifted with delicate sensibilities and refined feeling!" Flora exclaimed. While Kitty was speaking, she had several times turned as if to leave "the chit." She had clenched her hands, bitten her lip, and mercilessly stripped of its first green leaves one of the boughs of a bush that stood near, but she had not gone, and now she spoke as composedly as though she had not for a moment lost her self-possession.
"Will you ever understand me, child?" She shrugged her shoulders. "I think not; you cling with childlike credulity to your tiresome code of what you call morality, and can never appreciate the soul of things, estimating everything by your rule, as the tradesman does his stuffs by the yard, be they coarse or fine, green or red; but I will try to make myself clear."
She approached her sister, so closely that Kitty felt her breath upon her cheek. "Yes, you are right," she said, in a low tone, and with a hasty side-glance towards the window of the house, "my betrothal-ring is lying in the depths of the river. I flung it away in a paroxysm of despair, in utter disgust,—disgust at the prospect of a life of poverty at Bruck's side. Girls of your stamp cannot, of course, understand this. You choose a husband for certain qualities, a good figure, perhaps, or a fine beard, and when once you have said 'yes' you follow him through thick and thin; and rightly,—such girls make excellent mothers of well-taught sons. They cower in the domestic nest and timidly and humbly close their eyes when an eagle soars to dizzy heights above them. But such an eagle must be my mate. Upon those heights I breathe my native air; close by his side, I cheer him onward and encourage his lofty flight——"
"And if some malignant arrow lame his wing, you proclaim him a crow and leave him like a coward," Kitty interrupted her, thus trenchantly stigmatizing her ambitious sister's shameless treachery; and, as she spoke, she stood with folded arms, the personification of indignant womanhood. "You did not even have the grace to go quietly to work about your faithless schemes, as is the wont of traitors, but you openly declared your bitter hatred, and proclaimed yourself deceived, betrayed, on this very spot, where now you stand again——"
"Bruck's idolized love, who needed to pass through all her errors to appreciate the magnitude of her good fortune," Flora completed the sentence, in a tone of triumph. Then, with a malicious gleam in her eyes, she added, "But you can be excessively impertinent, child. I am really struck by the fine turn you gave to my simile. I admit that a fair share of quite respectable intelligence has fallen to you,—just enough, indeed, to mislead you entirely in your estimate of genius, of a soul of fire. What can you know of a psychological problem? If I had uttered yesterday one word of friendship forfeited, you would be right in your indignation at my sudden change, for nothing of passion can come of friendship; while hate and love are close akin in the human soul,—they enkindle each other; excess of love often lies at the foundation of what seems bitter hatred. You, with your blunt sensibilities, can never understand this. You would propitiate your husband by some triumph of cookery, while a nature like mine, in the intensity of its desire to atone, might commit a crime for him, nay, even suffer death."
She pressed her clenched fist to her breast, as if she were even then thrusting a dagger into her heart. "And now let me tell you, never have I loved Bruck so passionately, so intensely, as since I have known how he has endured like a martyr, like a hero, in silence,—since I confessed to myself how bitterly I have wronged him; and never,"—she suddenly seized Kitty's hand in a clasp that was as cold as the wind which came blowing from the water,—"and never," she whispered, "have I been so fiercely jealous. Heed what I say, child! This is my domain. And although you are the last to be held dangerous by me,—he has no liking for you, as I have long observed, and, besides, will never have eye or ear for any other save myself,—still, I am not disposed to endure the presence near me of any one who so evidently seeks to please. Your 'homely' ways and conduct here, your intimate going and coming, do not suit me. For the future all this must cease. Do you understand, child?"