"We will wait," Doctor Bruck said, briefly, and took up his hat and cane to put them in the hall.
The Frau President started, and a perplexed expression crossed her countenance; but she instantly recovered herself, and, laying her hand on his arm, said, "How kind and good you are, my dear doctor, to help us thus out of our dilemma! I was afraid of encountering your opposition. Whitsuntide has been quite a nightmare to me, you so insisted upon that time."
"Yes; but my removal to L—— makes some change necessary," he said, quietly, and left the room.
"And what does Flora think?" the dean's widow asked, in an uncertain tone; she was apparently rather shocked at the doctor's cool behaviour, and the sudden, embarrassed silence on the part of the others.
Flora turned towards her a beaming countenance. "I am very glad of the postponement, since my future position is to be so different from what I had expected. There is need of much preparation and reflection. Good heavens, think of the change! A very different mode of life is looked for by the world from the wife of a famous professor from that expected of the wife of a simple doctor, Hofrath and physician to the royal household though he be." There was undeniable arrogance in her whole bearing; every word she said showed the exultation she could not suppress: she had reached the pinnacle of her most ardent aspirations.
The councillor rubbed his hands in a state of great satisfaction; he would have liked to laugh in her face. But the Frau President had some trouble to conceal her rising indignation; her grandchild evidently contemplated achieving at her husband's side a higher social position than she herself, the wife of an exalted government official, had ever attained.
"What are you talking of, Flora?" she said, with a disapproving shake of her head.
"Of my brilliant future, grandmamma," she replied, with a supercilious little smile, as she turned away with the air of one who would not by any word or look be reminded of a disagreeable past.
"And now I resign myself entirely to you, dear aunt," she said to the dean's widow, who was closely observing her every look and word. "Do with me what you will. I will obey you in everything; only show me how I can make Leo happy; I will sew, cook——" And, as she spoke, she drew off her lace mittens as if impatient to begin; but, as she did so, she made a grasp at the empty air, with a sudden exclamation of dismay,—the "simple golden circlet" had slipped from her finger. No one had heard it fall on the floor; every one looked for it, but in vain: it seemed to have vanished into air.
"It must be among your pillows, Henriette," Flora declared. She had grown quite pale. "Let me raise you up for a moment and see——"