"It looks as if the last weeks--five, six, seven--had, after all, had a very happy effect upon her. She has eight, nine, ten--lost a good deal of her haughtiness; the Countess Grieben congratulated me on her modest, truly womanly manners."
"Pardon me, dear aunt," said Felix, most bitterly; "but I can hardly rejoice as much as you at this favorable change. I wish it had taken place a few weeks before. Perhaps I should then not be lying here helpless, like a horse who has been hamstrung;" and he struck the arm of his chair violently with his sound hand.
"I know you have some reason to complain of Helen," said the baroness; "but hatred and revenge are very unchristian feelings, especially between relatives, whom nature has ordained for mutual love."
"Oh, certainly," interrupted Felix. "You are perfectly right, dear aunt! Our whole plan was built upon that supposition. What a pity, though, that Miss Helen did not care at all for this Christian love for our relatives!"
"You are bitter, Felix; and, as I said before, I admit that you may complain. But let us talk now of the matter that brought me here so early in the morning. The state of your health, dear Felix, causes me such great concern that I have been thinking of it all last night, and now I have formed a plan. You must start, and as soon as possible, on your trip to Italy."
Felix was destined to-day to pass from one astonishment into another. The physicians had advised this trip urgently for a fortnight; Anna Maria had opposed it as strenuously, because neither Felix, as she thought, nor she herself could at that moment afford to provide the necessary means. All of a sudden these means were forthcoming! All who knew the consistency of the baroness must have known that only a very extraordinary reason could have produced so sudden a change in her views.
What this reason was Felix did not learn in the further course of the conversation. He did not care particularly to know it. The last days and nights, full of pain, had broken his spirit; the frivolous haughtiness which he had so far boastingly exhibited had given way to mournful nervousness, in which but one thought remained uppermost--the desire to be well again at any cost. For this great purpose any means were welcome. If his aunt was willing to furnish the means for his travels, which he knew were indispensable for his recovery, well!--and all the better, the more she gave! Why she gave--why she gave now, after having declared it only a few days before utterly impossible to raise the means--what did he care for that? No more than a man who is in danger of drowning inquires from whence the saving log comes swimming down to which he clings at the very last moment.
When the baroness rose an hour later and folded up her work, the Italian journey was a settled matter. Felix was, if his condition did not grow worse, to start in a few days. "You know, dear Felix," said Anna Maria, "I am in favor of doing promptly what has to be done. And here there is danger in delay; besides, I should forever reproach myself bitterly if I had not done whatever was in my feeble power to avert this threatening danger from you."
She offered him kindly her bony hand, and Felix kissed it reverently. Anna Maria then left the room.
"The old dragon," grumbled Felix, sinking back exhausted; "what can have gotten into her head to make her all of a sudden so liberal? How lucky I did not tell her how much that rascal Timm is asking for! She will have to hear it one of these days; but not before I am down in Italy. Oh! my arm! I must submit to a regular cure; and, after all, every man is his own nearest neighbor."