"Herr Elmhorst wrote me that he had availed himself of your skill on behalf of his betrothed," he said, with frigid courtesy, "and I must express my thanks to you, Herr Doctor, for your efforts seem to have achieved very favourable results; my daughter looks decidedly better. Your diagnosis, I hear, differs from that of her former physicians?"
"Fräulein Nordheim seems to me to be suffering from a derangement of the nerves," said Benno, modestly, "and I have treated her accordingly."
"Indeed? The other gentlemen were tolerably well agreed in pronouncing her heart affected."
"I know it, but I do not agree with them, and the result of my treatment seems to prove me in the right. I have induced Fräulein Nordheim, who has been hitherto forbidden all exercise, to take walks and to increase their extent daily, and I have advised some mountain-climbing, and that she should spend as much time as possible in the open air, since this high atmosphere seems to suit her extremely well. Thus far I have cause to be satisfied with her improvement."
"As we all have," the president assented, gazing meanwhile at the young physician as if to read his soul. "As I said, I am grateful to you. You live in Oberstein, Wolfgang wrote me. Have you been there long?
"At least until some better position offers."
"There should be no difficulty about that," Nordheim remarked, and then went on to converse with the young man, but with a degree of distant courtesy that entirely precluded familiar ease. Not a word, not a look betrayed any consciousness that the man before him was the son of his early friend; in spite of his apparent kindliness, his reserve was also apparent.
Benno perceived this clearly, but was not at all surprised by it, for he had expected nothing else. He knew that the memories roused by his name were far from agreeable to the president, and in his modesty he never dreamed that the result of his medical treatment of the daughter could influence the father. He never thought of recalling associations so entirely ignored by the millionaire, and, as the meeting was an annoying one for him, he took his leave as soon as possible.
Nordheim looked after him in silence for a few moments, and then, turning to Wolfgang with a frown, he asked, sharply, "How came you to make this acquaintance?"