She was silent, and her eyes sought the ground; she could not look into the grave intense face of the speaker and contradict the truth he uttered.
"And I clung to keeping my troth to the letter, all the more that my spirit was faithless to you——"
"Yes, Flora, I have struggled with my inclination as with a deadly foe." He sighed heavily. "From the first moment I have dealt cruelly with myself, and with the girl who inspired me with this invincible passion. I would not permit the slightest, the most innocent approach upon her part. I would not even endure in my room the flowers she had held in her hand and thoughtlessly forgotten. She liked to be in my house. I forbade her coming as if she had desired to fire my roof. I was coldly uncivil to her even while I looked into her face that was heaven to me——"
"Ah, yes, one can well conceive it. Divine to the eye of a physician,—round and healthy, pure white and red painted in strong colours by Nature herself." With these words the breathless listening figure awoke to life. "And you dare to tell me this? What! this naïve, innocent creature throws flowers into the rooms of the men whom she would ensnare——"
"Hush!" He raised his hand with an air of such command as silenced even those wayward lips. "Overwhelm me with reproaches, I shall not justify myself; but in defence of Kitty I am armed to the teeth. She never wittingly attracted me; she returned to Dresden with no knowledge of my heart or—of her own. Why she went you well know. Whilst from one quarter she was met by persuasions to contract a loveless marriage, from another she was informed that the rooms which she occupied were needed for the comfort of a high-born guest. I was witness to this uncivil treatment, and almost forgot myself so far as to remonstrate indignantly with the Frau President; yet when an indirect request was made to me to receive the unwelcome inmate in my house I had no room there for her; nay, more, an hour afterwards she was an involuntary auditor of my request to my aunt to break off all intercourse with her until I should have removed to L——. And she went, wounded to the core of her proud firm and yet gentle nature, and I was brutal nay wicked enough, for the sake of a false principle, for the sake of the idol of clay which represents certain ideas of honour, to persist in the monstrous lie which I tried to make credible to her, to myself, and to the world about me."