"Once a rebel, always a rebel," declared the Councillor, emphatically. "An amnesty can avert punishment. It cannot efface the past."
Max assumed a look of indignation.
"Is it possible, Councillor Moser, that I hear this from your lips? You, who have ever boasted of being our sovereign's most loyal subject, now refuse to recognise that sovereign's edict? His gracious Majesty has pardoned, you say yourself. It is his will that the past should be effaced and forgotten; but you will not accept this decision; you would abrogate the royal prerogative; you rise up in revolt against the authority of the reigning prince! Why, this is opposition, rebellion--to put it plainly, treason itself."
This wonderful chain of argument was developed with so much fluency and assurance that the Councillor had no time to put in a word, or to reflect on its intrinsic value. He was flustered and disconcerted. Casting a hopeless glance at the speaker, he said at length, in rather a small voice:
"Do you really think so?"
"It is my unalterable conviction. But to return to my offer of marriage."
"Not a word more on the subject," interrupted Moser. "To speak of it is an insult. My daughter is the betrothed of Heaven."
"I beg your pardon, she is my betrothed," asserted Max, manfully. "Heaven can wait, I can't. After fifty years of conjugal happiness, I have no objection to surrender Agnes to a higher lot. Until then, I claim her as mine, and mine alone."
"Do you mean to turn my child's sacred vocation into ridicule?" exclaimed the old gentleman, kindling to fresh wrath. "I have long known you to be an infidel, an atheist, a----" his voice forsook him, he panted for breath, and grasped at his neckcloth with both hands.
"Do not excite yourself in this manner," said the young doctor, warningly. "These violent fits of emotion are most dangerous at your age, and to a man of your temperament. They are calculated to produce congestion--apoplexy!"