Not long afterwards, Kitty, carefully supporting her invalid sister,
descended the stairs to announce her arrival to the family. They passed
through the narrow corridor where Kitty had taken refuge for a moment on
the evening of her departure. It ran near the ball-room, which occupied
almost the entire floor of a wing of the villa.
"They are rehearsing for this evening, and the men are decorating the
room at the same time," Henriette said, listening, with a quiet,
scornful laugh, as dramatic declamation, mingled with knocking and
hammering, was heard through the open doors. "Those girls are utterly
disgusting! They would one and all be glad to scratch the bride's eyes
out as they stand upon the stage, and yet they spout away about the
'loveliest flower' lost from their circle, the genius of poesy having
kissed her brow, and the like wretched stuff. And Moritz, with his
boundless extravagance, is behaving like a fool. Yesterday evening,
after his return from Berlin, he scolded the workmen as if they had been
school-boys. They had to tear down the 'worthless trash' they had put
up, because in two dark corners they had substituted woollen for silken
damask. Always the same parade of his millions! Just look here!"
She noiselessly opened a little wider one of the doors, through which
was visible a magnificent canopy of crimson velvet fringed with gold,
beneath which the bridal pair were to stand in the evening.
"Think how _he_, with his pale, gloomy face, will look beneath all that
finery!" Henriette whispered, leaning her blonde head upon her sister's
shoulder. "And she will stand beside him, victorious, triumphant as
ever, in her studied toilette of innocent white muslin and marguerites.
Oh, Kitty! there is something strange and inconceivable in the whole
affair. I often feel as if a miserable secret were lurking behind it
all, like a glimmering spark beneath gray ashes."
In the dining-room the Frau President was sitting at breakfast with
Flora and the councillor. Flora's beautiful morning dress was of white,
trimmed with pink, and a charming breakfast-cap covered her hair, which
was _en papillotes_. Kitty was startled,--her beautiful sister's
strongly-marked profile looked so sharp and thin without the golden
glory of the curls above her brow; for the first time she saw that Flora
was no longer young, that at last her restless ambition had begun to
grave deep lines in the lovely oval of her face.
"Heavens, Kitty! what put it into your head to drop down upon us
to-day?" she cried, with an irritation which she did not care to
conceal. "I cannot tell you how it embarrasses me. I must assign you
some place now whether I will or not, and I have twelve bridesmaids
already,--you see yourself I cannot want a thirteenth----" She paused
with a faint exclamation.
The councillor had been sitting with his back to the door, and had just
poured out a glass of Burgundy which he was raising to his lips, when
Flora's words apprised him of the entrance of the sisters. Either the
glass slipped from his hand in his surprise, or he did not look to see
how he placed it upon the table,--its dark crimson contents were spilled
upon the white damask cloth and stained Flora's dress.
For a moment he stood confused, dismayed, his face colourless, his eyes
staring at the door as if some bodiless phantom were entering there
instead of the stately girl with serious eyes and an assured bearing.
But he recovered himself quickly. Apologizing to Flora for his
awkwardness, he rang the bell for servants to repair the disaster, and
then, hastening to Kitty, drew her into the room. There was in his air
and manner not a trace of the rejected lover; in every word, as he took
her hands kindly, there spoke only the former fatherly guardian who
rejoiced to see his ward again. He patted her on the shoulder and bade
her welcome.
"I did not venture to invite you," he said, "and indeed I have been too
busy with business matters of late to be able to think much of Dresden.
You must forgive----"
"I am here solely upon Henriette's account, and as her nurse," Kitty
hastily interrupted him, without the least air of offence at Flora's
unsisterly reception.
"You are kind and good, my child," the Frau President said, with a smile
of relief; every fear was banished from her mind by the entire ease of
this meeting. "But where shall we put you? Your former room is
occupied by Flora's trousseau, and----"
"Therefore you must permit me to remain in my own home, where I have
just established myself," Kitty courteously and modestly finished the
sentence.
"I am afraid there is no help for it," the old lady replied, in the best
of humours. "This afternoon our house will be full to overflowing, and
everything is in the greatest bustle and confusion,--our breakfast-table
is in the only peaceful spot. From early dawn they have been hammering
and rehearsing----"
"Yes; they fairly shake the walls with their declamation in the
ball-room," said Henriette, wearily leaning back in the arm-chair the
councillor had placed for her. "As we passed, we heard 'Pallas Athene,'
'the roses of Cashmere,' and 'learned professor,' in admirable
confusion----"
"Ugh!" Flora exclaimed, putting her fingers in her earn, "it is really
too bad to force such an amateur production upon me, when I have
performed myself in so many of our court fetes. And there one must sit
and not move a muscle of one's face, when the ridiculousness of the
thing is half killing one with inward laughter----"
The Frau President imposed silence upon her by an emphatic gesture, for
the amateur performers, who had taken a cup of chocolate in the
dining-room before the rehearsal, made their appearance now in search of
the hats and parasols they had left behind them.
Flora slipped into the adjoining boudoir.
With an affectation of great delight, the maid of honour, Fraeulein von
Giese, hastened up to Kitty and welcomed her among them once more.
Then, holding out her hand to the councillor, she exclaimed, "So glad to
see you, my dear Herr von Roemer. Now we can thank you in person for
the delightful way in which you have seconded our efforts to make our
fete this evening charming. Everything is superb, like the work of
enchantment." She rapturously kissed her finger-tips. "Only in Villa
Baumgarten can one enjoy such 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments:' every
one agrees to that. Apropos, have you heard the terrible news about
Major Bredow? He is totally ruined, and many others are trembling in
terror. Good heavens! what times these are in which we live! Shock
follows shock with such rapidity----"
"But Major Bredow has been speculating so insanely," the Frau President
said, indifferently, adjusting herself comfortably among the cushions of
her arm-chair. "How could any one act so entirely without sense or
reason?"
"It is his wife's fault. She spent too much: three thousand a year on
her dresses alone."
"Oh, my dear, she might easily have done that of her husband had shown
more sense in his investments; but he mixed himself up with projects
that carried swindling on the face of them." She shrugged her
shoulders. "In such matters one should always take the best advice, as
I have done; eh, Moritz? we need have no fears."
"I should think not," he replied, smiling with easy assurance, and,
filling his glass with Burgundy, he emptied it at a draught. "Of
course, in such a general crash no one is entirely untouched; here and
there small sums vanish that have been risked just for the sake of
trying,--pin-pricks, that draw no blood----"
"Ah, that reminds me that I have not had my newspaper to-day," the Frau
President interrupted him, with animation. "It usually comes punctually
at nine o'clock."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Some negligence of the post-office, or it
may have slipped in among my papers and been sent to the tower. I will
see about it." And he filled his glass again.
"I beg pardon, ladies," he said, alluding to these repeated draughts.
"I am threatened with an attack of headache, to which I am subject, and
my best mode of prevention is a brimming glass of wine." His face did
indeed seem to have borrowed the dark hue of the wine he was drinking.
He hastily opened a bottle of champagne and filled several glasses. "I
pray you drink with me to the success of our evening's entertainment,"
he said to the ladies, who each followed his example in taking up a
glass. "To the flower-fairy and her train! To youth and beauty, and
the delights of life, so dear to us all,--ay, to existence itself!"
The glasses clinked, and the Frau President shook her head, with a
laugh.
Involuntarily Kitty had withdrawn to a window recess, in which stood
Henriette's arm-chair. She saw a tear tremble beneath the invalid's
eyelid at the thoughtless toast as she bit her lip in indignant pain;
for her, existence was a rack of torture,--for her, the delights of life
were purchased by suffering with every breath she drew. The young ward
had taken no glass, and the guardian had offered her none. The girl's
glance rested gravely and searchingly upon his mobile features. She had
never suspected that a tempest of feeling could arise behind the man's
smooth, passionless face; and yet there it was, plainly indicated in the
uncertain wandering eyes, in the quiver of the lips, in the forced
merriment of the voice.
Her guardian seemed conscious of her look; involuntarily he glanced
towards the window, and then hastily placing his glass upon the table he
passed his hand across his brow and ran his fingers through his
hair,--an attack of dizziness seemed to threaten him for an instant, in
addition to the headache which evidently defied his remedy.