"Oh, I cannot fear anything of the sort from you, the acknowledged champion of dames, the most gallant of men," laughed Angelika,--"and the other gentlemen will not be too bard upon us."
Herbert shrugged his shoulders.
"Besides," Angelika continued gaily, "I have been a little hardened in the matter by my stern lord and master, who has very little consideration for our sex."
"Scarcely to be wondered at in a practising physician," Herbert said in a low tone to his associates; then, turning with his sweetest expression to Angelika, "Could you not have taught him better long ago?"
"Oh, no," complained Angelika.
"He considers his wife an exception," interposed the Staatsräthin; "she seems to have left no room in his nature for sympathy with the rest of womankind. I have never seen a man so exclusive in his regard."
"Such a wife deserves it all," said Herbert, kissing Angelika's hand.
At this moment the door opened, and old Heim, his fine head crowned with locks of silvery whiteness, entered. All bowed low to this "Nestor of science," as he was called. After the death of his king he had accepted a call to N----, and had for eight years occupied the chair of pathology in the University there. He was followed by his adopted son, for whom he had created a professorship for the cure of diseases of the eye,--a fair, handsome young man, slender in figure and gentle in demeanour, with hands so small and well shaped that they seemed formed for the very purpose of handling such a delicate piece of mechanism as the eye. The Staatsräthin and Angelika greeted them both with all their old cordiality, and Professor Herbert said aloud, "How fresh and strong our revered associate looks! he must teach us how to retain our youth."
"Yes, indeed," said Meibert, "if Bock could see him he would recall his cruel assertion that man retains full possession of his mental powers only until the age of fifty!"
"He will soon recall that when he has passed fifty himself," said a deep, powerful voice. All turned to the new-comer.