"Now come in, Dr. Reinsfeld," said the Freiherr, who did not apparently regret this departure. "But it occurs to me that you do not know my brother-in-law,--the gentleman who has just driven off."
"President Nordheim,--I am aware," replied Reinsfeld, looking after the vehicle, which was vanishing at a turn in the road.
"Extraordinary," muttered Thurgau. "Everybody knows him, and yet he has not been here for years. It is exactly as if some potentate were driving through the mountains."
He went into the house; the young physician hesitated a moment before following him, and looked round for Erna; but she was standing on the low wall that encircled the court-yard, looking after the conveyance as with some difficulty it drove down the mountain.
Dr. Reinsfeld was about twenty-seven years old; he did not possess the Freiherr's gigantic proportions, but his figure was fine, and powerfully knit. He certainly was not handsome, rather the contrary, but there was an undeniable charm in the honest, trustful gaze of his blue eyes and in his face, which carried written on its brow kindness of heart. The young man's manners and bearing, it is true, betrayed entire unfamiliarity with the forms of society, and there was much to be desired in his attire. His gray mountain-jacket and his old beaver hat had seen many a day of tempest and rain, and his heavy mountain-shoes, their soles well studded with nails, showed abundant traces of the muddy mountain-paths. They bore testimony to the fact that the doctor did not possess even a mountain-pony for his visits to his patients,--he went on foot wherever duty called him.
"Well, how are you, Herr Baron?" he asked when the two men were seated opposite each other in the room. "All right again? No recurrence of the last attack?"
"All right," said Thurgau, with a laugh. "I cannot understand why you should make so much of a little dizzy turn. Such a constitution as mine does not give gentlemen of your profession much to do."
"We must not make too light of the matter. At your years you must be prudent," said the young physician. "I hope nothing will come of it, if you only follow my advice,--avoid all excitement, and diet yourself to a degree. I wrote it all down for you."
"Yes, you did, but I shall not pay it any attention," the Freiherr said, pleasantly, leaning back in his arm-chair.
"But, Herr von Thurgau----"