"Guess, Flora, who this is!" exclaimed the councillor.
"No need to puzzle long over that riddle; it is Kitty, who has made the journey alone," she replied, in her careless yet decided manner. "It would be impossible for any one who knew old Frau Sommer to doubt for a moment that this stout girl, with a face like a rosy-cheeked apple, is her grandchild; her eyes and hair, however, are strikingly like Clotilde's, Moritz."
She lightly disengaged herself from the hanging flowers, approached her sister, and, lifting the girl's chin, kissed her lips. Yes, this was the same incomparable Flora; but her long-continued sway over the hearts of men had robbed her actions of feminine tenderness. With the same negligence with which she tendered a kiss to her sister after a separation of six years, she greeted the doctor with a "Good-evening, Bruck," extending her hand to him, not as if he were her lover, but rather as though he were some fellow-student. He pressed slightly the hand thus given, and acquiesced in its instant withdrawal.
This outward reserve between the lovers seemed to be an understood affair. Flora turned gaily towards the conservatory, exclaiming, with a mocking smile, "Grandmamma, our heiress presents herself to the admiring gaze of yourself and your friends a month earlier than she was expected."
At Flora's first words the Frau President made her appearance from behind a group of camellias. Without being aware of it herself, perhaps, she had been watching the new-comer with that keen attention which most people are apt to bestow upon one whom men dub a favourite of fortune. Flora's half-malicious remark quickly altered this expression, however. The old lady knitted her brows disapprovingly, and a delicate flush tinged her pale face. "I do not remember having displayed any extraordinary interest in your sister's heiress-ship," she said, coldly, with a stern glance of reproof. "If I take great pleasure in Kitty's arrival, and welcome her most cordially, it is because she is my dear lost Mangold's daughter, and your sister."
She approached Kitty with outstretched hands, as if to embrace her, but the girl courtesied profoundly and formally, as if presented for the first time to her father's haughty mother-in-law. A keen observer would have seen in her conduct a shy recoil from all contact, but the Frau President apparently regarded it as simply indicative of profound respect. She withdrew her hands, and touched the girl's forehead with her lips. "Did you really come alone?" she asked, and her eyes turned towards the door, as if half fearing the entrance of some unwelcome companion to her guest.
"Quite alone. I wished for once to try my wings unaided, and my Frau Doctor willingly consented." As if unconsciously, she passed her slender fingers across her forehead where the Frau President's cold lips had rested for an instant.
"Ah, that I can easily believe; there I recognize old Lukas," Frau von Urach rejoined, with a gentle laugh of irony. "She, too, was always very independent. Your good father spoiled her a little, my child. She did as she chose; of course only what was right——"
"And sensible, and therefore papa was glad to intrust his wild young colt to her care," Kitty added, with all the frank gaiety natural to her. This freedom of manner, however, seemed to produce an unfavourable impression.
The Frau President slightly shrugged her shoulders. "Your father certainly had your welfare at heart, my dear Kitty, and I made it a rule never to object to any of his plans. But his nature was eminently refined; he thought much of a due sense of decorum. Might he not, perhaps, have slightly disapproved of his daughter's dropping down thus, sans gêne, unceremoniously in the midst of a household?"