Presently the Doctor resumed: ‘I will take the smaller matter first: your conduct to your wife. You went, I hear, and had an explanation. That may have been right or wrong; I know not; at least, you had stirred her temper. At the council she insults you; well, you insult her back—a man to a woman, a husband to his wife, in public! Next upon the back of this, you propose—the story runs like wildfire—to recall the power of signature. Can she ever forgive that? a woman—a young woman—ambitious, conscious of talents beyond yours? Never, Otto. And to sum all, at such a crisis in your married life, you get into a window corner with that ogling dame von Rosen. I do not dream that there was any harm; but I do say it was an idle disrespect to your wife. Why, man, the woman is not decent.’ ‘Gotthold,’ said Otto, ‘I will hear no evil of the Countess.’ ‘You will certainly hear no good of her,’ returned Gotthold; ‘and if you wish your wife to be the pink of nicety, you should clear your court of demi-reputations.’ ‘The commonplace injustice of a by-word,’ Otto cried. ‘The partiality of sex. She is a demirep; what then is Gondremark? Were she a man—’ ‘It would be all one,’ retorted Gotthold roughly. ‘When I see a man, come to years of wisdom, who speaks in double-meanings and is the braggart of his vices, I spit on the other side. “You, my friend,” say I, “are not even a gentleman.” Well, she’s not even a lady.’ ‘She is the best friend I have, and I choose that she shall be respected,’ Otto said. ‘If she is your friend, so much the worse,’ replied the Doctor. ‘It will not stop there.’ ‘Ah!’ cried Otto, ‘there is the charity of virtue! All evil in the spotted fruit. But I can tell you, sir, that you do Madame von Rosen prodigal injustice.’ ‘You can tell me!’ said the Doctor shrewdly. ‘Have you, tried? have you been riding the marches?’ The blood came into Otto’s face. ‘Ah!’ cried Gotthold, ‘look at your wife and blush! There’s a wife for a man to marry and then lose! She’s a carnation, Otto. The soul is in her eyes.’ ‘You have changed your note for Seraphina, I perceive,’ said Otto. ‘Changed it!’ cried the Doctor, with a flush. ‘Why, when was it different? But I own I admired her at the council. When she sat there silent, tapping with her foot, I admired her as I might a hurricane. Were I one of those who venture upon matrimony, there had been the prize to tempt me! She invites, as Mexico invited Cortez; the enterprise is hard, the natives are unfriendly—I believe them cruel too—but the metropolis is paved with gold and the breeze blows out of paradise. Yes, I could desire to be that conqueror. But to philander with von Rosen! never! Senses? I discard them; what are they?—pruritus! Curiosity? Reach me my Anatomy!’ ‘To whom do you address yourself?’ cried Otto. ‘Surely you, of all men, know that I love my wife!’