To these communications Kitty made no reply; she was possessed by the conviction that it had been high time for her to return. She found the sick girl much changed, and in a state of feverish agitation. The hard hollow cough shook her emaciated frame much more frequently than formerly, her hands were burning hot, and her breath came with great difficulty. She had hitherto always denied herself the relief of tears; her will was of iron. But to-day her beautiful eyes were swollen and disfigured with weeping. She was consumed by fear, she wailed, hiding her head on Kitty's breast, lest Bruck, with all his love for Flora, should be wretchedly unhappy; and although nothing had been said by the dean's widow about it, she was sure the old lady felt as she did, and was miserable. Kitty admonished her, rather curtly, that this was solely Bruck's affair; no one had had more opportunity than he of being thoroughly aware of Flora's egotistical nature. If he persisted in making her his wife, he was surely prepared to meet the consequences. Henriette started up in alarm; the words sounded so harsh. Indeed, there seemed a strange alteration in Kitty; a kind of stern reserve was in her whole manner, as though she had accepted her fate after a hard struggle.
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
Not long afterwards, Kitty, carefully supporting her invalid sister, descended the stairs to announce her arrival to the family. They passed through the narrow corridor where Kitty had taken refuge for a moment on the evening of her departure. It ran near the ball-room, which occupied almost the entire floor of a wing of the villa.
"They are rehearsing for this evening, and the men are decorating the room at the same time," Henriette said, listening, with a quiet, scornful laugh, as dramatic declamation, mingled with knocking and hammering, was heard through the open doors. "Those girls are utterly disgusting! They would one and all be glad to scratch the bride's eyes out as they stand upon the stage, and yet they spout away about the 'loveliest flower' lost from their circle, the genius of poesy having kissed her brow, and the like wretched stuff. And Moritz, with his boundless extravagance, is behaving like a fool. Yesterday evening, after his return from Berlin, he scolded the workmen as if they had been school-boys. They had to tear down the 'worthless trash' they had put up, because in two dark corners they had substituted woollen for silken damask. Always the same parade of his millions! Just look here!"
She noiselessly opened a little wider one of the doors, through which was visible a magnificent canopy of crimson velvet fringed with gold, beneath which the bridal pair were to stand in the evening.
"Think how he, with his pale, gloomy face, will look beneath all that finery!" Henriette whispered, leaning her blonde head upon her sister's shoulder. "And she will stand beside him, victorious, triumphant as ever, in her studied toilette of innocent white muslin and marguerites. Oh, Kitty! there is something strange and inconceivable in the whole affair. I often feel as if a miserable secret were lurking behind it all, like a glimmering spark beneath gray ashes."
In the dining-room the Frau President was sitting at breakfast with Flora and the councillor. Flora's beautiful morning dress was of white, trimmed with pink, and a charming breakfast-cap covered her hair, which was en papillotes. Kitty was startled,—her beautiful sister's strongly-marked profile looked so sharp and thin without the golden glory of the curls above her brow; for the first time she saw that Flora was no longer young, that at last her restless ambition had begun to grave deep lines in the lovely oval of her face.
"Heavens, Kitty! what put it into your head to drop down upon us to-day?" she cried, with an irritation which she did not care to conceal. "I cannot tell you how it embarrasses me. I must assign you some place now whether I will or not, and I have twelve bridesmaids already,—you see yourself I cannot want a thirteenth——" She paused with a faint exclamation.
The councillor had been sitting with his back to the door, and had just poured out a glass of Burgundy which he was raising to his lips, when Flora's words apprised him of the entrance of the sisters. Either the glass slipped from his hand in his surprise, or he did not look to see how he placed it upon the table,—its dark crimson contents were spilled upon the white damask cloth and stained Flora's dress.
For a moment he stood confused, dismayed, his face colourless, his eyes staring at the door as if some bodiless phantom were entering there instead of the stately girl with serious eyes and an assured bearing. But he recovered himself quickly. Apologizing to Flora for his awkwardness, he rang the bell for servants to repair the disaster, and then, hastening to Kitty, drew her into the room. There was in his air and manner not a trace of the rejected lover; in every word, as he took her hands kindly, there spoke only the former fatherly guardian who rejoiced to see his ward again. He patted her on the shoulder and bade her welcome.