Molly knew this perfectly well, and took no pains to regain the lost favour. She expressed an ardent desire to join in the dance, declared that the elegant seclusion of the garden was a great bore, and finally proposed to mingle with the peasantry; in short, she nearly drove poor Frau von Lasberg to desperation.
"And if Benno comes, I shall dance with him although it should make Albert jealous," she said, with a glance towards her husband, who was standing with Erna and Waltenberg at the picket-fence looking on at the merriment on the green. "The poor doctor never has a moment's pleasure; just as we were setting out he was called to a patient, fortunately here in Oberstein, so he promised to follow us in half an hour. Alice, I hear that you are now under Benno's care."
The young lady nodded assent, and Frau von Lasberg remarked, condescendingly, "Alice conforms to the wishes of her betrothed, but I greatly fear that Herr Elmhorst over-estimates his friend when he attaches more value to his diagnosis than to that of our first medical authorities. And there is, at all events, great risk in intrusting his betrothed to the care of a young physician who, by his own confession, has practised almost exclusively among peasants."
"I think Herr Elmhorst perfectly right," Molly declared, with dignity. "Our cousin can easily compete with the 'first medical authorities,' I assure you, madame."
Baroness Lasberg smiled rather contemptuously: "Ah, excuse me! I really forgot that Dr. Reinsfeld is now a relative of yours, my dear Baroness."
"Frau Gersdorf, if you please," Molly corrected her. "I am very proud of my husband's name, and of my dignity as a married woman."
"So I perceive!" the old lady remarked, with an indignant glance at the young wife who so paraded her matrimonial satisfaction, and who, nothing daunted, chattered on merrily,--
"What did you think of Benno, Alice? He was perfectly inconsolable for his awkwardness on that first visit. Were you really as annoyed by it as he thinks you were?"
"Your cousin's deportment was certainly not calculated to inspire confidence, Frau Gersdorf," the Baroness remarked, emphasizing the plebeian name; but to her immense surprise she here encountered opposition from her usually passive charge. Alice raised her head, and said, with unwonted decision, "Dr. Reinsfeld made a very agreeable impression upon me, and I entirely share Wolfgang's confidence in him."
Molly glanced triumphantly at the old lady, and was about to launch forth in praise of her 'relative,' when the man himself made his appearance.