Another factor in Wilhelmine's life at that time was the Duke's friend Baron Forstner, a man of excellent and sterling qualities, but one of those unfortunate mortals cursed with a lugubrious manner which makes their goodness seem to be but one more irritating characteristic of a tiresome personality. Forstner was genuinely devoted to the Duke; he had been the companion of the Prince's childhood, had shared his studies, and had followed him on his travels to the various European courts and in the campaigns where Eberhard Ludwig had so mightily distinguished himself. How cruel it is that devotion may be so entirely masked by some wearisome trait, as to turn the whole affection into a source of irritation to its object! Forstner perpetually reminded his Highness of his duty. Now Eberhard Ludwig was possessed of a high regard for that stern code of life which is called Duty; he had all a soldier's respect for rule, for obedience, all a gentleman's reverence for honour and truth; yet these things, as presented by Forstner, were to him odious, and his first impulse was to go counter to any advice proffered in the drab-coloured guise of Forstner's counsel, and by his deep, dreary voice. 'L'osseux,' the Bony One, Madame de Ruth dubbed him; and truly the sobriquet was justified, for the man was so long and thin as to give the impression of bones strung on strings. He walked in jerks: his flat, narrow feet posed precisely, the head held forward, like some gaunt bird seeking with its lengthy beak for any meagre grain which might chance in its way. Somehow one felt the grain he sought must be meagre. 'The good God wills that Forstner lives,' said Madame de Ruth, 'and God knows he lives according to God's rules; but oh! how more than usually tiresome he makes those rules, poor Bony One!' Forstner naturally disapproved of Wilhelmine, and the two were for ever contradicting each other; but she often endeavoured to propitiate him, for she loathed disapproval, and preferred the open hostility of a real enemy to the presence of any merely disapproving person. Eberhard Ludwig suffered intensely in those weeks at Stuttgart; he was fiercely irritable to Forstner, resenting his comments on Wilhelmine, though he longed childishly for some appreciation of a new and much-prized toy.