Alice shook her head, and replied, in an undertone, "I am unused to it; but I do not believe the people are really rude."
"Indeed they are not!" Benno declared. "There is nothing to fear from our Wolkensteiners,--that I can testify, having lived as long as I have among them."
"Yes, for five years, Wolfgang tells me. How have you managed it?"
The question was put in a tone of such compassion that Benno smiled: "Oh, it is not so terrible as you suppose. It is, to be sure, a lonely life, and at times a laborious one, but it has its pleasures."
"Pleasures?" Alice repeated, dubiously, raising her large brown eyes to his, which so confused the doctor that he forgot to reply.
Suddenly there was a movement among the crowd: they perceived Reinsfeld for the first time,--for on his arrival he had come through the inn,--and instantly a circle was formed about him. "The Herr Doctor! Our Herr Doctor! Here he is!" resounded from all sides, while twenty, thirty heads were bared, and as many brown hands were stretched out to the young physician. Old and young thronged about him eager for a word or a look or to bid 'God bless' him. There was an outburst of enthusiasm at sight of their 'doctor.'
Reinsfeld glanced with some anxiety at his companion,--he feared she might be annoyed by these stormy demonstrations; but Alice seemed, on the contrary, to enjoy them; she clung rather closer to his arm, but she looked unusually happy and interested.
No sooner did the doctor explain that the young lady wished to look on at the dance than all began eagerly to arrange a place for her. The entire crowd about the doctor accompanied them to the dancing-floor; the rows of spectators were ruthlessly parted asunder, a chair was brought, and a few moments later Alice was seated in the midst of all the joyous tumult of St. John's day, and the sturdy mountaineers formed a sort of garde d'honneur on each side of her, taking care that the whirling couples did not fly past her close enough to brush the Fräulein's skirt. There was a certain rude chivalry in the way in which they arranged the place for the companion of their doctor.
"The people seem very fond of you," said Alice. "I did not imagine that the peasantry were so devoted to their physician."
"They are not usually," was Reinsfeld's reply. "They are apt to see in him only a man who costs them money, and they try not to avail themselves of his help. But the relation between the Wolkensteiners and myself is exceptional. We have gone through some hard times together, and they give me credit for not leaving them in the lurch, and for going indiscriminately to every one who needs me, even although the poor wretch have only a 'God bless you!' by way of fee. There is a great deal of poverty among the people, and it is impossible to think only of one's self; at least I have found it so."