“I believe you,” she said, and pressed his hand tightly. After a slight pause, she went on, looking straight into his eyes: “I might have lost you, dear,—and I could have blamed no one but myself. She—she is very alluring.”
He shook his head. “I've always been of the opinion that Samson's hair needed trimming. His mother probably brought him up with Fauntleroy curls, poor chap. If he'd had his hair cut regularly, he wouldn't have looked such an ass when Delilah got through with him.”
“I don't quite follow the parable.”
“In other words, it's what a man's got in his head and not so much what he's got on it that makes him strong,” he explained, still more or less cryptically.
“I am beginning to see. You made good use of what you have in your head, is that it?”
“I made use of what you put into it a good many months ago, dear heart. You have been in my head and in my heart all these months, and so it was you who made me strong. Without you in there, I might have been as weak as Samson was before he had his hair cut. No sensible man blames Delilah. In fact, men are rather strong for her. When you stop to think how long old Samson got away with it, and what a shock it must have been to her after she trimmed him and found there wasn't anything left to speak of, you've just got to feel sorry for her. She took one good look at his head and understood why he let his hair grow. He was like the fellow who wears long whiskers to develop his chin. If Samson had had room enough in his head for a thought of anything except himself, Delilah wouldn't have been able to catch him napping.”
She could not help laughing. “You take a most original way of evading the point. Still, I am satisfied. You did not have room in your head for any one else but me,—and that's all there is to it. I can't help feeling tremendously complimented, however. She is quite capable of turning any man's head.”
“She plays fair, Ruth,” he said seriously. “She keeps the danger signal up all the time. That's more than you can say for most women.”
“Yes,” said she; “she plays fair. She is a strange woman. She has given me a lot of advice,—and I am just beginning to take it.”
“If I had believed what she told me three months ago,” said he, “this glorious hour would have been advanced just that length of time.”