"And you imagine this to have been _your_ Bruck, your protégé?" Flora interrupted him. She tried to smile, but her ashy lips, as well as her whole pale, mocking face, seemed paralyzed to marble.
"It certainly was _my_ Bruck, as I am proud to call him," the councillor replied, with evident satisfaction. He was rejoiced indeed at this fortunate turn of affairs. True, he had long ceased to have any scruples with regard to his silence in a certain matter; the manner of the miller’s death no longer troubled his repose,—for he was a genuine child of the times, an egotist, who, when the choice was to be made between "another" and "self," was never for a moment in doubt that "self" was to be preferred. "And, besides this, a pamphlet he has just published has made an immense sensation in medical circles," he continued. "They say he has made a surgical discovery of great importance to the profession. Oh, there is no denying it,—a brilliant career awaits Bruck."
"Impossible!" Flora said, in a strangely altered tone. She looked like a player who stakes his last guinea upon one card. "I am not to be imposed upon! Either there is some mistake here as to the name, or—the whole story is a fabrication."
At this obstinate and unjustifiable incredulity the councillor fairly forgot the courteous forbearance and self-control he was wont to exercise in his intercourse with the ladies of his household. He stamped his foot angrily and turned away.
The Frau President stood by the table, her white, wrinkled fingers playing nervously upon its surface, her eyes fixed anxiously upon her grandchild. She entirely understood what she must feel upon hearing thus extolled the man whom she had so shamefully depreciated and slandered. It was a lamentable defeat; but these were moments in which a true woman of the world was bound to assert her supremacy.
"You cannot help yourself, Flora," she said, calmly; "you will have to believe it at last. For my part, strange as it is, I doubt no longer. The Duke of D—— is uncle on the mother’s side to the crown-prince; of course he is rejoiced at his nephew’s recovery, for yesterday evening I saw the order of the D—— royal household lying upon Bruck’s writing-table."