ed 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!'

'O, love!' cried Gotthold; 'love is a great word; it is in all the
dictionaries. If you had loved, she would have paid you back. What does
she ask? A little ardour!'

'It is hard to love for two,' replied the Prince.

'Hard? Why, there's the touchstone! O, I know my poets!' cried the
Doctor. 'We are but dust and fire, too and to endure life's scorching;
and love, like the shadow of a great rock, should lend shelter and
refreshment, not to the lover only, but to his mistress and to the
children that reward them; and their very friends should seek repose in
the fringes of that peace. Love is not love that cannot build a home.
And you call it love to grudge and quarrel and pick faults? You call it
love to thwart her to her face, and bandy insults? Love!'

'Gotthold, you are unjust. I was then fighting for my country,' said the
Prince.

'Ay, and there's the worst of all,' returned the Doctor. 'You could not
even see that you were wrong; that being where they were, retreat was
ruin.'

Why, you supported me!' cried Otto.

'I did. I was a fool like you,' replied Gotthold. 'But now my eyes are
open. If you go on as you have started, disgrace this fellow Gondremark,
and publish the scandal of your divided house, there