He said this to himself when, after a few minutes of discouragement, he
rose from the arm-chair, hastily completed his toilet, and again looked
at the whole effect in the mirror, this time not close at hand, but from
a distance of several paces.
Some one knocked at the door. "The doctor," said the servant's voice.
"I'm coming," replied Baron Robert, hastening to open the door and enter
the adjoining drawing-room, where Dr. Thiel was awaiting him. He came
regularly one morning every week to see the baron before the latter went
out; for Baron Robert was a little anxious about his health, and liked to
be told by the physician, who was also his friend, that certain trifling
symptoms--great thirst on a hot day, slight fatigue after a ball, a
little heaviness in his limbs after a long walk, were of no importance.
"Well, how are you to-day?" cried Dr. Thiel, rising to meet him.
"Fairly well," replied Linden, clasping both his hands.
"Yet, surely you look rather downcast?" asked the physician.
"For good reasons," answered Linden sighing.
"What is the matter now? Have you no appetite after eating? Do you feel
more tired at midnight than in the morning?"
"Don't ridicule me.
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