“You are subtle if you can trace an amorous influence in that letter.”
“It doesn’t call for subtlety. Samson only abandons himself so completely under amorous circumstances. I hope you are not going to shear the poor fellow.”
“For shame,” said Camelia, while Perior, looking at her reflectively, softly slapped the palm of his hand with Arthur Henge’s letter. “I am his comrade. I help him; I am on his side, if you please, and against the Philistines.”
“Oh, are you? And this? Ah! this is from the leader of the Philistines, Rodrigg. Yes, I heard that Rodrigg was in the toils.” Perior examined the small, compact handwriting without much apparent curiosity.
“That is simply nonsense. There was a time—but he soon saw the hopelessness. He is my friend now; not that I am particularly fond of him—the grain is rather coarse: but he is a good creature, far more honest than he imagines, simple, after a clumsy fashion. He aims at distinguished diplomatic complexity, I may tell you, and, I fancy, comes to me for the necessary polishing. Read his letter.”
Perior had looked at her, still smiling, but more absently, while she spoke.
“Oh! Rodrigg is more cautious,” he said glancing through the great man’s neatly constructed phrases. “You are not with the Philistines; he feels that.”
“Politically no; but I have a good deal of influence with him. You see those reviews he mentions; I went through a lot of heavy French and Italian reading for him—sociology, industrialism—and saw the result in his last speech.”
“Really.”
“Ah, really. Don’t be sarcastic, Alceste, to me. One of those men will probably be Prime Minister some day. You can’t deny that they are eminent men.”