The hostess went from one to the other of her guests, exerting herself for the entertainment of all.
"What a shame!" she said, entering the room after a short absence, "Frau Räthin Wolf has sent to say that her Adolph cannot come to-night; he is in bed with a fever. As soon as the note came, I ran across myself to Doctor Fels; but there is no doing anything with that man upon the subject of his children's education. He repeated his former refusal, and so ungraciously, that I am quite outraged. He says that he considers any part in such entertainments with grown-up people entirely unfit for half-grown boys like his Moritz, who get their heads filled with a sense of their own importance, their minds distracted from their lessons,—and Heaven knows what besides. He told me, most insolently, that he thinks I should have done better this evening to have provided my suffering husband—suffering, indeed, he is as lively as a fish in the sea, except for a touch of rheumatism—with a supper that he liked, than to have worried him with such buffoonery, which will only deprive him of his usual comfort and night's rest, and do no living creature any earthly good."
"How coarse! how rude! He is always pretending to be a connoisseur of art, and doesn't understand it one whit better than my little finger," was heard from one and the other of the ladies.
"Let my experience console you, dear Adele," said Ceres. "Were it not that my husband cannot dispense with his services as a physician, Fels should never darken my doors again. When I had that children's fancy-ball last winter, which was acknowledged to be a great success, he refused my invitation to his children; and what do you think he said to me, when I begged him to allow his little girls to come,—'Does it really give you pleasure to see such monkey-tricks?' I never will forgive him!"
Elizabeth suddenly seemed to see the doctor's intellectual face, with its searching glance, sarcastic smile, and the slightly contemptuous play of its finely-formed lips. She laughed inwardly at his rude replies; but she was struck at the same time by the depressing thought, how hard it is for a man to live up to his convictions.
"But what would you have, Frau Director?" broke in Flora, a delicate, languishing figure with a pretty but very pale face, who had hitherto been entirely occupied in smiling upon her flower-decked reflection in an opposite glass. "He has treated us no better. Two years ago he told my father and mother to their faces, that it was not only folly but want of principle—just think of such a thing!—to allow me to go into society so young, with my constitution. Papa and mamma were furious,—as if they did not know best about their own children! It was well that we all knew what prompted such tender care on his part. His youngest sister was then still unmarried, and, naturally enough, she was by no means pleased to see young girls usurping her place in society. Papa would have dismissed the doctor upon the spot, but mamma depends upon his prescriptions. Well, they paid no attention to his advice, and, as you see, I still live."
The silence of the assemblage confirmed Elizabeth's conviction that the triumph which Flora spoke of was a very doubtful one, and that this delicate creature, with her narrow chest and pallid face, would still have to atone severely for the physician's neglected counsel.
Suddenly a barouche slowly passing down the street attracted the ladies to the window. Where she was sitting Elizabeth could plainly see the object of the universal curiosity. In the elegant vehicle sat the Baroness Lessen and Fräulein von Walde. The latter had her face turned towards the assessor's house, and she looked as if she were diligently counting the windows of the lower stories. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, always a sign in her of inward agitation. The baroness, on the contrary, was leaning back negligently among the cushions, and appeared to be entirely unconscious of everything around.
"The Lindhof ladies," said Ceres. "But, Heavens! what is the meaning of that? They are entirely ignoring Doctor Fels' windows. There stands the doctor's wife. Ha, ha! what a long face; she tried to bow, but the ladies have no eyes in the backs of their heads."
Elizabeth looked across at the opposite house. A very beautiful woman, with a lovely fair-haired child in her arms, was standing at the window. There certainly was a puzzled look in her pleasant blue eyes, but the delicate oval of her face was not in the least lengthened. Attracted by the movements of the child, who stretched out his little arms towards the fantastic heads at the windows of the assessor's house, she looked across, and, archly smiling, nodded to the ladies, who kissed their hands, and replied to her salutation by all sorts of tender pantomime.