Only one member of the assembly in the smoking-room
took the part of this much-abused woman, and declared that her
character had been most cruelly and most unjustly assailed.
But as the man was a lawyer, his interference went for nothing:
it was naturally attributed to the spirit of contradiction inherent
in his profession. He was asked derisively what he thought
of the circumstances under which the Countess had become
engaged to be married; and he made the characteristic answer,
that he thought the circumstances highly creditable to both parties,
and that he looked on the lady's future husband as a most
enviable man.
Hearing this, the Doctor raised another shout of astonishment by
inquiring the name of the gentleman whom the Countess was about to marry.
His friends in the smoking-room decided unanimously that the
celebrated physician must be a second 'Rip-van-Winkle,' and that
he had just awakened from a supernatural sleep of twenty years.
It was all very well to say that he was devoted to his profession,
and that he had neither time nor inclination to pick up fragments
of gossip at dinner-parties and balls.
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