“And I think, madame,” he replied, “that I may regard it as an honor to have got in.”
In spite of urgent pressing, he refused politely but firmly to be kept to dinner, and put an end to the persistency of the ladies by saying that he was the Hippocrates of his young sister, whose delicate health required great care.
“Monsieur is perhaps a medical man?” asked one of Emilie’s sisters-in-law with ironical meaning.
“Monsieur has left the Ecole Polytechnique,” Mademoiselle de Fontaine kindly put in; her face had flushed with richer color, as she learned that the young lady of the ball was Monsieur Longueville’s sister.
“But, my dear, he may be a doctor and yet have been to the Ecole Polytechnique—is it not so, monsieur?”
“There is nothing to prevent it, madame,” replied the young man.
Every eye was on Emilie, who was gazing with uneasy curiosity at the fascinating stranger. She breathed more freely when he added, not without a smile, “I have not the honor of belonging to the medical profession; and I even gave up going into the Engineers in order to preserve my independence.”
“And you did well,” said the Count. “But how can you regard it as an honor to be a doctor?” added the Breton nobleman. “Ah, my young friend, such a man as you——”
“Monsieur le Comte, I respect every profession that has a useful purpose.”
“Well, in that we agree. You respect those professions, I imagine, as a young man respects a dowager.”