Kitty seized this favourable moment to get down from the ladder. How her heart beat, how her cheeks burned, at having overheard this familiar talk! The door of the room led directly into the hall: she could escape unseen; even the dean's widow might suppose she had left the bedroom long since, without hearing a word that had been said. She cast a stealthy glance through the door of the corner room, where aunt and nephew were standing by the writing-table. Just then she heard the doctor say, "Ah, here are the first spring flowers! Did you know how fond I am of these little blue blossoms?"
He was interrupted by an exclamation of surprise: "It was not I, Leo. Kitty, your young sister-in-law, put those flowers there. Indeed, I am absent-minded and forgetful!" The old lady hurried into the next room; but Kitty had already slipped out of the hall door into the open air.
Without, she sauntered calmly and leisurely past the windows. Through the first she could faintly descry the gay flowers upon the still unhung bed-curtain; then came two windows with pretty net curtains, belonging to the aunt's sitting-room. One of them was open, and from it came the fragrance of hyacinth and narcissus. Suddenly a man's hand, strong and shapely, placed among the flower-pots on the window-sill a milk-white glass filled with blue flowers: it was her spring bouquet, which the doctor had thus removed from his writing-table.
She paused, startled by the thought that in her heedlessness she had placed herself in a false position. Evidently he regarded the placing of the flowers on his writing-table as an officious act on the part of a thoughtless, forward young girl. With her eyes shining with ill-suppressed tears of indignation, she extended her hand to the window. The gesture attracted the doctor's attention; he looked up.
"Will you be so kind as to hand me out my flowers, Doctor Bruck? they belong to me; I laid them down for a moment and forgot them," she said, with difficulty preserving her self-possession.
For one moment he seemed to be startled by the sound of the voice so unexpectedly addressing him. Perhaps he was annoyed that Kitty had observed him; but, if so, he instantly suppressed the sensation, and said, kindly, "I will bring you the flowers." His deep, quiet voice disarmed her immediately: he had not meant to wound her.
A moment afterwards he came down the steps. His figure, with its broad shoulders and erect carriage, and the fine bearded face, belonged of right, it seemed, to a soldier, and should have been clad in uniform, were it only the green coat of a forester, He handed the glass to the young girl, with a courteous inclination.
She took out the flowers. "They are the first little determined things that were in a great hurry to get out into the sharp April air," she said, with a smile. "They need to be searched for, but, when found, are worth a whole hot-house full of plants." He certainly could not suppose now that she had so far presumed upon their future relationship as to ornament his writing-table.
His aunt appeared at the open window, and begged the young girl to repeat her visit frequently.
"Fräulein Kitty is going back to Dresden in a few weeks," the doctor answered instantly in Kitty's stead.