Whether it were this same imploring expression or the childlike sincerity and gentleness, which, in spite of the young man's embarrassment, were evident in the dark-blue eyes lifted to her own, that touched Alice, she suddenly felt moved to say, with extreme kindness, "You will hardly be able to judge of my health in this first visit, Herr Doctor, but be sure that I shall place implicit confidence in Wolfgang's friend."
And she held out to him a transparent little hand, which lay like a rose-leaf in his own as he said, with far more earnestness than the occasion warranted, "Oh, thank you, thank you, Fräulein Nordheim!"
Frau von Lasberg's face plainly showed her doubt of the capacity of a physician whose first visit to a patient so overwhelmed him with stammering confusion, and who was so profusely grateful for nothing. And this man was Elmhorst's friend, and Alice seemed quite content. The old lady shook her head, and said, with much reserve, "You are wont to be very chary of your confidence, my dear Alice."
"I am all the more pleased that she should make an exception in my friend's favour," Wolfgang interposed. "You will not regret it, Alice. I assure you, Benno's acquirements and skill will bear comparison with those of his most distinguished fellows. I am always remonstrating with him for not exercising them in a wider field. He is sacrificing his life here in a subordinate position, and only last year he refused a most advantageous offer."
"But you know, Wolf----" Reinsfeld attempted to interrupt this praise.
"Yes, I know that a couple of little peasants who were ill so absorbed you that you let the opportunity slip."
"Ah, was that the reason?" Alice asked, in an undertone, glancing again at the young man, who looked as if he were being accused of some crime.
"The Herr Doctor practises among the peasantry, if I understand aright?" said Frau von Lasberg. "Do you really drive up the mountains to the secluded cottages scattered here and there?"
"No, madame, I walk," Reinsfeld explained, simply. "I have, it is true, been obliged of late years to buy a mountain-pony for extreme distances, but I usually walk."
The lady cleared her throat and looked significantly at the engineer, who was intrusting his betrothed's health to a doctor of peasants. Benno was now entirely out of her good graces. Wolfgang understood her look, and smiled rather contemptuously as he said, "Yes, madame, he walks; and when he reaches his home after an expedition through snow and ice, he works away at a scientific treatise that will one day make him famous. But no one must know anything about that. I discovered it only by chance."