The Prince sat down.
‘Explain yourself; I do not understand,’ he said. Malakopf flicked the ash off his cigar. He was so completely master of the situation, that he did not intend to be hurried.
‘It is true that your seat is only temporary at present,’ he said; ‘but one way and another, dear Prince Petros, I have managed to become a somewhat influential person in the State——’
‘So I always tell my wife,’ said the Prince with extraordinary unwisdom, thinking to please the centipede.
‘I am infinitely grateful for your good word,’ replied the other. ‘But I did not mean that I had any influence in the eyes of the Princess—and, to speak to you with a frankness that will nearly equal your own, I do not care to have. But with my considerable wealth, and the extent of my estate, not to mention a certain personal influence I have with a large party in the Assembly—an influence which it would be false modesty in me to underrate, I could, I think, manage to secure you a permanent seat.’
‘Take another cigar,’ said the Prince. ‘Will you do this for me?’
Malakopf smiled. The juxtaposition of the offer of a cigar and this request suggested, fantastically enough, a bribe.
‘I do not say it would be easy to manage,’ he replied. ‘It might be a troublesome affair, and, to speak plainly’—here he laid his hand on the Prince’s knee, and looked him suddenly in the face—‘what am I to get by it?’
‘Yet you said this afternoon that my not having a seat in the Senate was an anomaly.’
‘I endorse what I said. But is it expedient for me personally to attempt to do away with that anomaly?’