"But Major Bredow has been speculating so insanely," the Frau President said, indifferently, adjusting herself comfortably among the cushions of her arm-chair. "How could any one act so entirely without sense or reason?"
"It is his wife's fault. She spent too much: three thousand a year on her dresses alone."
"Oh, my dear, she might easily have done that of her husband had shown more sense in his investments; but he mixed himself up with projects that carried swindling on the face of them." She shrugged her shoulders. "In such matters one should always take the best advice, as I have done; eh, Moritz? we need have no fears."
"I should think not," he replied, smiling with easy assurance, and, filling his glass with Burgundy, he emptied it at a draught. "Of course, in such a general crash no one is entirely untouched; here and there small sums vanish that have been risked just for the sake of trying,—pin-pricks, that draw no blood——"
"Ah, that reminds me that I have not had my newspaper to-day," the Frau President interrupted him, with animation. "It usually comes punctually at nine o'clock."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Some negligence of the post-office, or it may have slipped in among my papers and been sent to the tower. I will see about it." And he filled his glass again.
"I beg pardon, ladies," he said, alluding to these repeated draughts. "I am threatened with an attack of headache, to which I am subject, and my best mode of prevention is a brimming glass of wine." His face did indeed seem to have borrowed the dark hue of the wine he was drinking.
He hastily opened a bottle of champagne and filled several glasses. "I pray you drink with me to the success of our evening's entertainment," he said to the ladies, who each followed his example in taking up a glass. "To the flower-fairy and her train! To youth and beauty, and the delights of life, so dear to us all,—ay, to existence itself!"
The glasses clinked, and the Frau President shook her head, with a laugh.
Involuntarily Kitty had withdrawn to a window recess, in which stood Henriette's arm-chair. She saw a tear tremble beneath the invalid's eyelid at the thoughtless toast as she bit her lip in indignant pain; for her, existence was a rack of torture,—for her, the delights of life were purchased by suffering with every breath she drew. The young ward had taken no glass, and the guardian had offered her none. The girl's glance rested gravely and searchingly upon his mobile features. She had never suspected that a tempest of feeling could arise behind the man's smooth, passionless face; and yet there it was, plainly indicated in the uncertain wandering eyes, in the quiver of the lips, in the forced merriment of the voice.