"Oh, dear! you mean my poor old councillor of medicine," cried Flora, smiling, and shrugging her shoulders. "Go on, child, if it pleases you! I know nothing, it is true, about his medicines, but I can affirm that he has never yet been so clumsy as——nearly to cut a patient’s throat."
The councillor turned a pale face towards her and involuntarily raised his hand, as if to stop the slanderous words upon her lips; he was speechless as he timidly glanced at Kitty.
"Not heartless, but bold enough to call things by their right names, even if the hard words make my own wounds bleed afresh. Where is the merit else of uncompromising truth? Think of that terrible evening, and ask yourself who was right! I knew that a fall from the heights of a mere superficial adventitious celebrity was sure to come. It has come, more disastrously and completely than even I feared, as you must admit if you would not dispute the unanimous verdict of the public. That I will not share this fall every one who knows me must be aware. I cannot smooth over and adjust matters as grandmamma so well understands how to do. I would not do so if I could. No part is more ridiculous than that of those simple-souled women who continue openly to adore where the world unites in pronouncing that there is nothing worthy of worship."
She opened the other folding-door and stepped out upon the balcony. She had spoken with passionate emphasis; the pale marble tint of her Roman profile, seen clearly cut against the blue sky of spring, glowed with a gloomy fire; her eyes were full of disdain, her nostrils quivered nervously,—she was the very personification of burning impatience.
"At least, it was his part to convince me.—How I would have defended him then, both with tongue and pen!" she continued, thrusting her slender fingers in among the rustling tracery of withered vines. "But he chose to reply to my first and only question upon the subject, by an icy look, haughty as a Spaniard——"
"Such a reply should have sufficed you——"
"Not so, my dear Moritz; it was a very convenient and easy answer, and I am sceptical with regard to speaking looks and gestures: I require more. But I show you that my will is good in the matter by repeating again what I said at first: ’Prove to me and to the world that he did his duty well, for you were present!’"