"Does Flora's jest annoy you, my dear child?" the councillor asked, hastily approaching her. He drew her hand through his arm. "Console yourself with the knowledge of the charming picture you presented among the hens and chickens. Only wait, and you shall possess the finest collection of them that can be got together."
The Frau President, who was ascending the steps, paused a moment, as if her breath had suddenly failed her; her head, trembling nervously, was turned for an instant with an of contempt towards the tender guardian, and then she hastened her entrance into the house. "Brainless fop, he will never cease to be the vulgar bagman!" she muttered, angrily, to Flora, who put her handkerchief to her lips to hide a laugh.
Kitty, as if unconsciously, let her hand remain within her brother-in-law's arm. She scarcely heard what he was saying; she did not observe Doctor Bruck's mute surprise as he stood motionless and allowed the pair to pass him: she only saw Flora's hand, the one in which she held the handkerchief to hide her laughter, and which was covered with a delicate lace mitten that harmonized well with the lace of her dress and by contrast made her hand more snowy white than ever. The diamonds had disappeared from the third finger, where the "simple circlet of gold that weighed upon her like iron" again gleamed dully through the meshes of the lace. Impossible! It lay beneath the waters of the rolling stream. Kitty suddenly felt as if all about her were unreal; her eyes and ears were no longer to be trusted.
"What does this mean?" the Frau President asked, with a frown, pointing to the assemblage in the hall of the furniture from the villa.
"I thought it best to humour Henriette in her desire that these articles should be removed from her room," said Dr. Bruck.
"She was perfectly right. Begging your pardon, grandmamma, it was a ridiculous idea to crowd the sick-room with all those things," Flora remarked, with a shrug. "The poor child is often oppressed for breath; this well-stuffed furniture must have been stifling."
Her grandmother evidently meditated a severe retort, but the doctor was present, and the maid was standing at the door of the kitchen; so she refrained, and went on to the sick-room. As she entered it, she started. Henriette was leaning out of bed, so wasted and pale, and yet with such an eager expectancy in her large wide-opened eyes, that the Frau President feared she was again delirious. The invalid's cool greeting relieved her, however, and she saw that the look which had startled her was directed towards Flora, who had entered the room directly behind her.
The beautiful woman instantly went up to the dean's widow, who had arisen at the entrance of the visitors, and grasped her hand, as if she would thus atone for the neglected farewell of the previous evening, and then she turned to the bed. "Well, dear," she said to the sick girl, "you are wonderfully better to-day, we hear——"
"And you, Flora?" Henriette interrupted her, with irrepressible impatience, as she accorded an absent greeting to the councillor, who stood by her bedside.
Flora suppressed a mocking smile. "I? Oh, tolerably well only! Yesterday's fright is still telling upon my nerves, but my self-control and firm will stand me in stead. Yesterday I was indeed in a wretched state; I was really ill, almost insane, I verily believe, with nervous agitation; at all events, I have but an indistinct remembrance of what happened after that terrible walk,—and no wonder! Daniel in the lions' den was scarcely worse off than I surrounded by those furies——"