To-night! The wedding was to take place on the next day but one, and immediately afterwards the newly-married pair were to set off upon a bridal tour. Kitty knew it, she had read it often enough in Henriette's diary, and yet the thought came to her now with a shock of terror.
"They are to have a fine time at the villa to-night," Susy said, as she handed her young mistress a cup of coffee. "I was talking yesterday with the councillor's Anton, and he says they haven't room enough for all the guests who are coming. They have built a theatre, and ever so many young ladies from town are to dress up, and the evergreens have been coming by wagon-loads to ornament the house."
The factory clock was striking eleven as Kitty walked over to the villa. The murmur of voices was still audible as she went through the mill-yard, but scarcely had the small door in the wall separating the park from the mill-garden closed behind her before an aristocratic silence reigned around.
Franz was right; one felt here that the noise and confusion of the money-market could not touch the rich man and his belongings; that the devouring waves of misfortune and ruin could not even wet the soles of his feet. Ah! there stretched the beautiful lake. It had absorbed the azure of the sky, and lay a giant sapphire of spotless purity. It had been finished thus quickly at an enormous expense of money and labour. Swans were gliding to and fro upon its placid waters, and near the shore rocked a gaily-painted boat, fastened at the end by a chain. Kitty had left the park a mass of tender spring green; now the shadows had deepened. The sun's fiery rays, pouring down in all their summer splendour, had burned away the delicate colours of the flowers of spring, and had kindled in their stead the torches of the cannas and the straight stems of the gladiolus upon every bit of lawn that peeped forth among the shrubbery.
How many hands must be employed to maintain such exquisite neatness everywhere! Not a fallen leaf lay upon the paths, not a blade of grass broke the even line of the gravelled roads, no fading blossom was left upon the bushes. And in the distance, among the groups of majestic trees, appeared the imposing façade of the new stables; their erection also had been so swift as to seem almost the work of magic. For all there had been expended immense sums; whatever was flung abroad in the stock market, the golden stream here seemed inexhaustible. None of the electric shocks that had wrought such destruction in the business world had been felt here.
Passing on beneath the shady arches of the linden avenue, Kitty approached the villa. Never had the fairy structure seemed to her so aristocratically unapproachable as to-day in the golden light of morning, the gay flag waving from the roof,—a fluttering sign of welcome floating on the air. Involuntarily the young girl laid her hand upon her throbbing heart; she had not been invited, and yet she had come. It was a sacrifice indeed to sisterly affection, this crushing down of her own proud nature. Behind the bronze tracery of the balcony, the Frau President's lap-dog was running to and fro, barking at the visitor with all his old hostility, and the parrot, in his gilded cage in the blue drawing-room, screamed in chorus.
As Kitty entered the door, a lady glided past her, holding her handkerchief to her face, and above its lace border she glanced shyly at the young girl from eyes swollen and red with weeping. Kitty recognized her; it was the gay young wife of a major, accustomed to every luxury. The elegance and variety of her toilettes had been the talk of the capital. She hurried around the corner of the house towards the shrubbery, probably to remove there the traces of tears before she was seen upon the public highway.
"There is nothing left for her husband but to shoot himself; they say he has lost every stiver," Kitty heard one of the servants say, as she passed through the hall. "Serves him right! What has an army officer to do with speculating in stocks that he knows nothing of? Then his wife comes to our master, and cries her eyes out to beg him to help them out of the mire. A pretty piece of business! If he were to help all those who have been to him lately, he might take up his staff and beg on the road; he would have nothing left for himself."
Another victim, then, of the terrible crisis! Kitty shuddered, and ascended the stairs unperceived. A solemn silence reigned in the third story. Mechanically she opened the door of the room that had formerly been assigned to her. It was plain that the Frau Baroness Steiner reigned here no longer; but the room had evidently not been arranged to receive another guest. Much of the furniture had been removed, and in its stead the walls were lined with draped tables covered with a profusion of articles, displayed with great taste and care,—the gorgeous trousseau of the professor's wife in spe; in the centre of the room, upon a tall dress-stand, hung a robe of snowy satin, covered with lace and orange-blossoms, the heavy train lying long upon the floor,—Flora's wedding-gown. Kitty turned away her eyes, and closed the door; and in a few moments she clasped in her arms Henriette, who, at sight of her sister, broke into such a transport of joy that it seemed the result of relief from terrible pain.
The sick girl was alone. No one had any time to give her to-day, she said. The councillor had taken upon himself all the arrangements for the festival given in honour of Flora's marriage, and everything was to be conducted upon a scale of great magnificence. He was determined to show the capital what money could do. To be sure, this was the weak point in his character. With her usual inconsequence, she had neglected to tell any one of the telegram she had dispatched to Kitty. Such an announcement would have been entirely superfluous, she declared, in reply to Kitty's look of surprise and dismay; every one knew that she had promised to return and nurse her poor Henriette whenever she was sent for, and as for an unexpected encounter with the councillor, Kitty might rest perfectly easy; Moritz had "a new flame" in Berlin, whence he had returned of late, and especially yesterday, remarkably absent-minded; only smiling archly, and making no denial, when Flora had rallied him.