"I don't care a rap for the Professor of Therapeutics. We have far greater authorities at our University of Z----, and our success is infinitely more marvellous. But we do not cling to tradition and routine, like you gentlemen here in this patriarchal R----."
Hereupon the two medical men fell into a professional dispute, which grew so violent that Frau Christine hurried in from the next room, in alarm. But, on crossing the threshold, she stopped, petrified with astonishment at the sight which met her view. Dr. Brunnow, who, according to all rule and precedent, should have lain calmly on his death-bed, sat upright, gesticulating, and pouring forth volley after volley of argument on his colleague, raking him with the fire of his proofs and refutations; while the colleague himself, who, ten minutes before, had, as it were, stolen into the room on tiptoe, so fearful was he of disturbing the dying man, now stood before his patient in a state of violent excitement, and fought with both arms in the air, whilst he in vain sought to stem that torrent of speech and put in a word in his turn. Failing altogether in this, he seized his hat at last in a rage, and cried:
"If you know everything so much better than anyone else, treat yourself in future, if you please. I shall let the Governor know your precise state, and shall at the same time tell his Excellency that I have never yet met with such a patient--a man who yesterday lay at death's door, and who to-day flings the grossest insults at me and at the whole body of the faculty here. You are right, sir. Such a constitution as yours is unique. You put every diagnosis to shame. I wish you a good-morning."
So saying, he left the room tempestuously. Frau Christine, who had not understood a word of the business, stared after him in astonishment, and then went up to the invalid for an explanation.
"Goodness me, what is the matter? What has happened? The doctor is running away in a perfect fury, and you----"
"Let him run," said Max, leaning back composedly. "That man and brother is bent on making of me a candidate for heaven. He has very nearly killed me with his stupid proceedings. Now I will take my treatment into my own hands, and set about it at once, too. Dear Frau Christine, I do beg of you, in the most earnest and affectionate manner, bring me something to eat."
It might be about an hour later that Agnes Moser, after a short interval of rest, of which she stood but too much in need, prepared again to take her place by the bedside whence during the last few days she had hardly stirred. Meanwhile Dr. Brunnow had followed out his own prescription with an exactitude which left nothing to be desired, much to the delight of Frau Christine, who thought the doctor showed great discernment in his mode of treatment. But in vain did she preach to him to try and get a little sleep. Max declared that he did not want to sleep, and occupied himself exclusively with watching the door through which Agnes must enter. When in the short space of a quarter of an hour he presumed to ask three times where his nurse was, and what she could be doing, Christine grew somewhat irritated. She looked the patient sternly in the face, and said, without any beating about the bush:
"What's all this that is going on between you and Fräulein Agnes, Doctor? There is something underneath, something hidden; I have seen that a long while."
Max preferred to make no answer; but this availed him little. The housekeeper went on, in her blunt, straightforward way:
"Don't trouble yourself to try and impose on me. I have not been in and out of this room all these days for nothing. Do you think I have not seen how the poor child has been fretting, and the change that came over you whenever Agnes went near you? I know all about it, I assure you; you won't deceive me."