She whom Doctor Karl Fritz Ehbehard covered with a most rapid scrutinising glance, hardly had she appeared on the terrace hesitating to advance, was a woman of forty-five, very dark and pale, with a thick mass of black hair without a thread of white, with a face of perfect features without a wrinkle, of a complete beauty, already mature, and which, perhaps, would still last for years before declining. Cunningly this mature beauty was supported by dominant, but not offensive, traces of cosmetics and bistre—a light shade of pink on the cheeks a little too pale, a slight trace of rouge on the well-designed lips. There was an even more cunning taste in the dressing of the hair, in her clothes and hat, an intense but discreet luxury, an exquisite but yet prudent elegance. But over all this beauty, which must have been invincible twenty years ago, and dazzling ten years ago, there was a proud and scornful expression. At some moments this mature beauty became rather austere or even gloomy, in the blackness of the eyes, in the soft and knotted eyebrows, in the closed mouth, as if hermetically sealed. At a nod from the doctor, who, without showing interest, continued to scrutinise her, she sat down.
"Madame has come to consult a doctor?" he asked in French, with a German accent, but as if he attached no importance to the reply.
"Yes, Doctor. But do we have to discuss here?" she observed, with a slight gesture of wonder and perhaps of impatience.
"Here, Madame," he replied tranquilly.
"Can we not retire into a room? Will it not be better?"
"No," he declared, "it is better to remain in the open air in the Engadine."
"For sick people?"
"For sick and healthy," he added, "nothing is of greater value than air in this country."
And he threw a glance around at the landscape. The lady bowed, perhaps not convinced but mollified.