Kitty opened wide her honest brown eyes at this audacious denial; the anathema hurled yesterday against the "dreary old barn" still rang in her ears.
"There is no reasoning with you. I know you well. With all your boasted love of honesty and straightforwardness, you are ready to hide behind a falsehood as soon as it suits you to do so!" the Frau President, by this time thoroughly angry, declared, and, as she moved her hand upon the table, she pushed aside the bundle of manuscript lying there. The cover again fell off, revealing the "big, sprawling letters" of the title.
"Ah, is this here again upon its zigzag journey through the world?" she asked, pointing to the papers. Her tone showed how malicious she, the advocate of moderation in all things, could be. "I should think you might at last allow it its natural rest in the waste-paper basket. This perpetual offering of it for publication, with the consequent repeated rejection of it by the publishers, is, since you are so nearly connected with me, becoming unendurable. I should like to know how you would bear it if one of us should even hint a doubt of your 'great intellectual capacity;' and yet it comes to you from others every four or five weeks, put down in black and white——"
"Do not chafe yourself needlessly, grandmamma. You, as well as certain other people, may easily be mistaken," Flora interrupted her, glancing the while angrily towards her young sister. Had not the chit heard a like unfavourable judgment passed upon her mental powers on the previous day? "You are out of sorts, because you have lost in Von Bär a good friend at court,—and indeed I cannot but sympathize with you, for Bruck will hardly understand how to further your small interests there, even for my sake. It is hard for you, very hard, and yet I cannot see why I should be your victim. I will ask permission to withdraw until the household skies are again clear." She gathered together her papers, and vanished, like a blue cloud, behind the door leading to her dressing-room.
"She is so very eccentric," the Frau President said, with a sigh. "There is nothing in her of her mother, who was all gentleness and docility. Mangold did very wrong in placing her at the head of his household while she was so young. I did all I could to prevent it, but I might as well have talked to the wind. You know well enough, Moritz, how obstinate Mangold could be."
Kitty went towards the door to leave the room. It was undeniable that Flora's early release from all authority had been an injury to her, but the young girl could not stay and hear her dead father so blamed for—refusing, for excellent reasons, to allow his mother-in-law to take the lead in his household.
The councillor followed her and took her hand. "You are so pale, Kitty, so grave and quiet," he said. "I am afraid you we still suffering from the effects of the events of yesterday, my poor child." It was not said at all in the tone of an elderly guardian.
"Kitty has been pale and silent for some days now," the Frau President hastily remarked. "I know what is the matter with her: she is homesick. You need not wonder at it, my dear Moritz. Kitty is used to the quiet life of the middle classes; they make an idol of her in Dresden; everything in the modest household revolves about the wealthy foster-child. With the best will on our part, that cannot be so here. We live too much in the world; all our social customs, the elements of our society, are so different, that she must necessarily feel oppressed and uncomfortable with us." She approached the young girl and gently stroked her cheek. "Am I not right, my child?"
"I am sorry to be forced to say 'no,' Frau President," Kitty replied, firmly, and, as she spoke, she drew back her head, evidently in protest against further caresses. "I am not made an idol of; everything in the household does not revolve about the heiress." She laughed archly. "The poor heiress has more than ever expected of her, and her errors and less indulgence than they did before she was rich. And the distinguished elements of your social circle are by no means so foreign to me as you suppose. The Prime-Minister Von B—— is a near friend of my foster-parents. Our drawing-room is, it is true, too small to accommodate card-tables, but it is a rendezvous for eminent literary men, and is often sought by musical celebrities, when, I assure you, my poor little cottage piano does good service." And again a charming and merry smile hovered upon her lips,—not, however, devoid of sarcasm: there was, indeed, an antagonistic vein in her composition.
"Thank God, my temperament is such as not to allow of my being homesick wherever I know that I am of use," she said, turning to the councillor. "So do not be afraid, Moritz, but rather give me leave to remain here for an indefinite length of time—for Henriette's sake."