"Ah, is this here again upon its zigzag journey through the world?" she asked, pointing to the papers. Her tone showed how malicious she, the advocate of moderation in all things, could be. "I should think you might at last allow it its natural rest in the waste-paper basket. This perpetual offering of it for publication, with the consequent repeated rejection of it by the publishers, is, since you are so nearly connected with me, becoming unendurable. I should like to know how you would bear it if one of us should even hint a doubt of your ’great intellectual capacity;’ and yet it comes to you from others every four or five weeks, put down in black and white——"
"Do not chafe yourself needlessly, grandmamma. You, as well as certain other people, may easily be mistaken," Flora interrupted her, glancing the while angrily towards her young sister. Had not the chit heard a like unfavourable judgment passed upon her mental powers on the previous day? "You are out of sorts, because you have lost in Von Bär a good friend at court,—and indeed I cannot but sympathize with you, for Bruck will hardly understand how to further your small interests there, even for my sake. It is hard for you, very hard, and yet I cannot see why I should be your victim. I will ask permission to withdraw until the household skies are again clear." She gathered together her papers, and vanished, like a blue cloud, behind the door leading to her dressing-room.
"She is so very eccentric," the Frau President said, with a sigh. "There is nothing in her of her mother, who was all gentleness and docility. Mangold did very wrong in placing her at the head of his household while she was so young. I did all I could to prevent it, but I might as well have talked to the wind. You know well enough, Moritz, how obstinate Mangold could be."
Kitty went towards the door to leave the room. It was undeniable that Flora’s early release from all authority had been an injury to her, but the young girl could not stay and hear her dead father so blamed for—refusing, for excellent reasons, to allow his mother-in-law to take the lead in his household.
The councillor followed her and took her hand. "You are so pale, Kitty, so grave and quiet," he said. "I am afraid you we still suffering from the effects of the events of yesterday, my poor child." It was not said at all in the tone of an elderly guardian.