" he continued,
"there is a day appointed for all when they shall turn again upon their
own philosophy. I had grown to disbelieve impartially in all; and if in
the atlas of the sciences there were two charts I disbelieved in more
than all the rest, they were politics and morals. I had a sneaking
kindness for your vices; as they were negative, they flattered my
philosophy; and I called them almost virtues. Well, Otto, I was wrong; I
have forsworn my sceptical philosophy; and I perceive your faults to be
unpardonable. You are unfit to be a Prince, unfit to be a husband. And I
give you my word, I would rather see a man capably doing evil than
blundering about good."

Otto was still silent, in extreme dudgeon.

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 Mad