“Mere formalities! How petty! How childish!”
After having taken off his spectacles, wiped them and replaced them twenty times, he had sat down at the rickety table in the corner of the room, and amused himself with arranging the fifteen or twenty shot he had extracted from the count’s wounds, in long lines or small circles. But, when the countess uttered her last words, he rose, and, turning to M. Galpin, said in a curt tone,—
“Now, sir, I hope you will let me have my patient again.”
The magistrate was not a little incensed: there was reason enough, surely; and, frowning fiercely, he said,—
“I appreciate, sir, the importance of your duties; but mine are, I think, by no means less solemn nor less urgent.”
“Oh!”
“Consequently you will be pleased, sir, to grant me five minutes more.”
“Ten, if it must be, sir. Only I warn you that every minute henceforth may endanger the life of my patient.”
They had drawn near to each other, and were measuring each other with defiant looks, which betrayed the bitterest animosity. They would surely not quarrel at the bedside of a dying man? The countess seemed to fear such a thing; for she said reproachfully,—
“Gentlemen, I pray, gentlemen”—