"Yes, yes!" Henriette interrupted, suddenly standing by Kitty's side in defiance of her arrogant sister.
"These rights I in no wise interfere with, as I am fully conscious," Kitty continued. "Matters must stand ill with you, Flora, when you see in the kindly actions of others a hostile element, that can imperil your position——"
"Imperil?" Flora repeated, clapping her hands, with a laugh. "Dearest and wisest of young moralists, you are under a slight mistake. Love that could pass unharmed through the fiery trial which I intentionally prepared for it can be imperilled by nothing in this world."
"Too true," Henriette murmured, in a sad, subdued tone. "It needs all my remembrance of Bruck's former firmness of purpose and true manliness to prevent his appearing to me now utterly weak."
"Of course," Flora continued, noticing Henriette's remark only by a slight shrug, "I am speaking merely with regard to the time between now and September, during which courtesy prompts me to make every concession to the dean's widow. In L—— everything will be different: matters will arrange themselves, and Bruck will find in the first weeks of our marriage that such a wife as his aunt would choose for him would be not only an insupportable burden, but an actual impossibility. When he sees me presiding in society he will acknowledge my superiority,—he will enjoy the lustre that my ease and grace as mistress of his household shed upon his distinguished position, when he finds that my holding aloof from housekeeping cares entails no pecuniary sacrifice on his part. I have calculated everything, and find that besides my pin-money I shall have quite sufficient income to pay out of my own pocket the wages of a housekeeper and capital cook."
As she spoke, she looked at her nails with a smile, and then turned aside with a haughty bend of her head. The tall mirror reflected a face and figure of dazzling beauty, but it was impossible to imagine that woman bending in love and anxiety over the couch of a sick child, or engaged in the thousand offices of affection and care to which the true wife and mother is prompted by the loftiest impulses of her nature.
Her gaze wandered from the contemplation of her own loveliness to the girl clad in white standing before the blue velvet portière, that brought into relief the youthful beauty of her figure, the incomparable freshness and delicacy of her colour beneath the heavy plaits of hair that crowned a face in which the dark eyes shone like stars. If in Flora was seen the woman of intellect who had already attempted to pierce the mystery of existence, her youngest sister was the type of maidenly innocence and spotless purity. Perhaps this displeased her, for she smiled and nodded scornfully at the young girl's reflection in the mirror.
"Yes, yes, little one, you will not long preserve that modest-violet air, and the domestic duties which Lukas has in her exaggerated ideas of this world so foolishly insisted upon your performing, will be as much out of place in your sphere of life as in mine. Moritz will never endure the jangle of a bunch of keys at your girdle,—rely upon that, even although he should gallantly promise you ten poultry-yards. He, with his brand-new stamp of rank, will insist more upon the aristocratic whiteness and softness of his wife's hands than does our most gracious prince himself."
Long before she had finished Kitty had moved, with a blush, to where the mirror no longer reflected her image. "What do Moritz's views upon the subject matter to me?" she asked, half turning round, while she looked in inquiring surprise at her sister.
"Oh, Flora, Flora, how can you be so thoughtless?" Henriette exclaimed, with a timid glance towards Kitty's expressive face.