The Countess Wanda smiled, and did not press her own opposition. She perceived that the mind of her aunt was full of vivid and harmless curiosity.
In the end she suggested that the Princess should represent her, and receive the foreign visitor with all due form and ceremony; but she herself was still indisposed to admit a person of whose antecedents she had no positive guarantee so suddenly and entirely into her intimacy.
'You are extraordinarily suspicious,' said the elder lady, pettishly. 'If he were a pedlar or a colporteur, you would be willing to talk with him.'
'Pedlars and colporteurs cannot take any social advantage of one's conversation afterwards,' replied her niece. 'We are not usually invaded by men of rank here; so the precedent may not be perilous. Have your own way, mother mine.'
The Princess demurred, but finally accepted the compromise; reflecting that if this stranger were to dine alone with her, she would be able to ascertain much more about him than if Wanda, who had been created void of all natural curiosity, and who would have been capable of living with people twelve months without asking them a single question, would render it possible to do were she present.
Meanwhile, the physician hurried back to his new friend, who had a great and peculiar interest for him as the editor of the "Mexico", and offered him, with the permission of the Countess von Szalras, to wile away the chill and gloomy day by an inspection of the Schloss.
Joachim Greswold was a very learned and shrewd man, whom poverty and love of tranquil opportunities of study had induced to bury himself in the heart of the Glöckner mountains. He had already led a long, severe, and blameless life of deep devotion and hard privation, when the post of private physician at Hohenszalras in general, and to the Princess Ottilie in especial, had been procured for him by the interest of Prince Lilienhöhe. He had had many sorrows, trials, and disappointments, which made the simple routine and the entire solitude of his existence here welcome to him. But he was none the less delighted to meet any companion of culture and intelligence to converse with, and in his monotonous and lonely life it was a rare treat to be able to exchange ideas with one fresh from the intellectual movements of the outer world.