share of her mother's pride she almost unconsciously imitated her
mother's behaviour. Greif himself was the only person who might have
known something of the true state of the case; but as he had been
accustomed to be in love with his cousin ever since they had been
children he would have feared to hurt her feelings by asking questions.
For Hilda was reticent even with him, not from any shame at the idea of
being thought poor, but because she was too proud to have it thought
that either she or her mother could ever need the help of the
Greifensteins.

Furthermore, if the baroness's reluctance to ask for assistance has not
been sufficiently explained, there is one more consideration which
might alone have sufficed to account for her conduct. Between her and
Greif's mother there existed a great and wholly insurmountable
antipathy. She could not understand how Greifenstein could have married
such a woman. There was a mystery about it which she had never
fathomed. Greifenstein himself was a stern, silent man of military
appearance, a mighty hunter in the depths of the forest, a sort of
grizzled monument of aristocratic strength, tough as leather, courteous
in his manner, with that stiff courtesy that never changes under any
circumstances, rigid in his views, religious, loyal, full of the
prejudices that make the best subjects in a kingdom and the bitterest
opponents of all change.

In appearance and manner Frau von Greifenstein presented the most
complete contrast to her husband. She had been pretty, fair and
sprightly in her youth, she was now a faded blonde, full of strange
affectations and stilted sentiments. Possessing but indifferent taste,
she nevertheless devoted much time to the adornment of her person. She
was small of stature, but delicately made, and if her nervous desire to