"Only a philanthropist," he rejoined, with a faint smile, and took his hat to go.
Flora had turned her back to him, and walked to the other window. There never was a woman's face more fitted to express enmity than was that clear-cut profile, that mouth so closely shut over the teeth. Had not the man plainly said that she had laboriously sought to collect the ideas of others?—she, with her talents! To be sure, she had never soiled her dainty foot with the dust of her brother-in-law's factory; it was true that she knew nothing of the life of those people whom the clamour for reform had assembled beneath one banner, where they were grown to be a power that thrust itself like a wedge into social order, threatening to shatter it. And why need she know by sight and contact what she described? Nonsense! Of what use, then, were intellect and imagination? Until to-day the doctor had never uttered a syllable with regard to her literary efforts,—"from timid reverence," she had supposed,—and now he suddenly treated her work with such scant courtesy,—he! "I cannot conceive, grandmamma," she exclaimed, with flashing eyes, "how you can dignify him with the title of idealist. To my mind, Bruck handles the great subject prosaically enough. According to his plan, we must instantly strip ourselves of every elegance and comfort, and dress in sackcloth and ashes; never must we indulge in intellectual pursuits, but must concoct soup for the poor. To insist upon quiet and retirement in our own park is a deadly sin; of course we must encourage the hopeful school-children to romp and play directly underneath our windows, etc., etc.; and if we are not docile, he threatens us with a ghost at our doors." She laughed a short, hard laugh. "Our philanthropist overshoots the mark terribly with these sympathies of his. If the conflict that he foretells ever really comes to pass, the ghost will make as short work with him as with us."
"I have not much to lose," the doctor said, with a smile.
Flora hastily approached him. Her curls stirred lightly, and her heavy velvet skirt swept the marble floor.
"Oh, since this morning that is not true, Bruck," she said, ironically. "You are a real-estate owner, Moritz tells me. Seriously, have you fulfilled your yesterday's threat and purchased that wretched barracks on the other side of the river?'
"My threat?"
"What else can I call your presenting to me such a picture of the future? You have, as you spoke of doing yesterday, invested your savings in a spot that is to me the ne plus ultra of desolation, poverty, and repulsive ugliness. You certainly cannot have possessed yourself of this gem simply to feast your eyes upon its beauties, and therefore I ask you seriously, 'Who is to live there?'"
"You never need cross the threshold."
"I certainly never shall,—you may rely upon that. Rather——" The glance with which the doctor raised his hand to interrupt her was a riddle hard to read, but it had such power in it that it silenced those beautiful lips.
"I purchased the house for my aunt, only reserving one room in it for my use,—a corner where I can enjoy a leisure hour of study amid rural surroundings," he said, immediately, and far more placidly than could have been anticipated from the former expression of his face.