"Never——"
"Then the housekeeper can do it. We have reason enough to plead illness." She took from her writing-table the key of the room where her trousseau was, whilst the Frau President retired to place her possessions if possible beyond the risk of being officially sealed up.
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
The morning air came, blowing over the tops of the trees in the park, through the open window, bringing into the church-like stillness of the bedroom a dreamy murmur of waters from the distant river, and breathing the fragrance of mignonette and heliotrope above the white face of the sleeping invalid. The crimson leaves of the wild vine that wreathed the window-frame quivered in the soft, gentle breeze that seemed to have plucked the reddened leaves as it passed to strew them upon the white coverlet, the fair hair, and the pale hands. Henriette had asked to have them brought to her, "as a farewell from the summer that was also passing away."
Kitty sat by the bedside watching her sister's slumber. She had, by a gentle gesture, scared away the robin that, accustomed to find crumbs scattered for him upon the window-sill, had boldly ventured into the room, his gentle twitter sounding alarmingly loud in the profound silence, in which each gasping breath issuing from the narrow chest was painfully audible. Doctor Bruck had been obliged to leave his patient for half an hour; the prince made a point of seeing at least once a day the physician who had cured him in a few weeks of a trouble of long standing. And so Bruck had chosen for this visit a time when Henriette was sleeping and would not miss him.
The maid had taken her place with her sewing behind the bed-curtains to be within call if needed. Every now and then she glanced towards the motionless figure in the arm-chair. They had declared below-stairs that the "Fräulein from the mill" would be the worst sufferer from the master's failure, but it seemed to Nanni that a girl who had just lost half a million must show it in some despairing way, and not look at all like the fair young creature who, with a bandage about her brow, and dressed in soft creamy white, sat watching by the bedside, grave but composed, and motionless as a statue. "So young, but so steady, so fresh and blooming, but with so little care for the good things of life," the maid thought after true lady's-maid fashion: the beautiful Fräulein packing up her trousseau in a neighbouring apartment was far wiser. She was taking care of everything belonging to her; sending her maid up- and down-stairs for every pocket-handkerchief that might have been mislaid; she was determined to lose nothing—nothing. Ah, she had always known how to take care of herself, and was just as rich as ever: she had not lost a penny. Now she was going to set off for L—— before her lover, with all her trunks and boxes, and so got rid of the trouble that might come upon the villa at any moment. It was vexing enough, but everything prospered with her; she might do as she pleased, and every one thought it all perfectly right. Suddenly there was such a noise in the trousseau-room that the sick girl started and moaned in her sleep.
"Fräulein Flora is packing up her things there," Nanni said, with affected unconcern, as Kitty started up and laid her hand soothingly upon that of her half-awakened sister.
Henriette's boudoir separated the two rooms, and Flora had of course supposed that no noise she made could be heard in this bedroom, or she would have been more careful in having her trunks moved. Kitty arose, and, closing behind her the door of the bedroom, crossed the sitting-room and entered the apartment whence the noise proceeded.
Flora uttered a low cry—whether from fright or vexation was doubtful—as the tall white figure appeared upon the threshold and in a low voice begged for quiet for her sleeping sister.
"I am sorry. I did not think the noise made in moving the trunks could be heard in Henriette's bedroom," she said, curtly. "You glide about so white and noiseless that one might suppose the ghostly Baumgarten ancestress, now that her wanderings in the tower are no longer possible, had taken up her abode in the villa. Mischief enough attends you. A good Christian ought to cross herself three times at sight of you."