Flora hastily extended her hand, as if to bar further utterance from the lovely lips. "Not another word, pray!" she exclaimed, authoritatively. Again she folded her arms and slowly inclined her head in assent. "Yes, my very wise young sister, I certainly was so weak and blind for a moment as to allow myself to be caught in a net; but, thank God! my head is free again, and is clear and strong enough to win back my liberty."
"And have you no conscience then, Flora?"
"A very sensitive conscience, my dear; it tells me that it would be most culpable frivolity to throw myself away. You remember your Bible well enough to know that we are each and all answerable for the employment of our talent. Look at me, and ask yourself if it is my rô1e to play the Frau Doctor and devote my time to housekeeping. And for whom?" She nodded her head towards the drawing-room, where the conversation was just then rather lively: old Colonel von Giese’s arrival had inspired the guests with some animation. Doctor Bruck, however, was sitting alone by the tea-table, looking over a newspaper,—he was apparently absorbed by it, and had hardly looked up upon Henriette’s return to his side.
"Do you see any of the gentlemen talking with him?" Flora asked, in a suppressed tone. "He is ostracized, and with justice. He has deceived me and the world. His brilliant reputation was the merest tinsel."
She broke off, and retired to her room, obviously to avoid the talkative old colonel, who now entered the music-room with his daughter and the councillor to beg for an introduction to Kitty. At his request, the young girl seated herself again at the instrument and played. Strange! As she lifted her eyes from the notes, she found her brother-in law watching her with an intense and indescribable expression, not at all like the brotherly air with which he gave her, as a child, a box of bonbons, or with which he had but yesterday brought her a bouquet from town. She willingly resigned her hand to him when he took it in conversation, and often permitted him to stroke her hair caressingly from her brow,—he did it much as her father had been used to do it; and now, when she had finished playing, and amid the enthusiastic applause that followed, he came hastily to her side and laid his hand upon her shoulder.