ROBERT.
[Suavely, hopelessly.] Well, the matter is closed for the present. You have your iron mask on today.
RICHARD.
[Smoking.] Let me hear the rest.
ROBERT.
[Again seriously.] Richard, you are too suspicious. It is a defect in you. He assured me he has the highest possible opinion of you, as everyone has. You are the man for the post, he says. In fact, he told me that, if your name goes forward, he will work might and main for you with the senate and I... will do my part, of course, in the press and privately. I regard it as a public duty. The chair of romance literature is yours by right, as a scholar, as a literary personality.
RICHARD.
The conditions?
ROBERT.
Conditions? You mean about the future?
RICHARD.
I mean about the past.
ROBERT.
[Easily.] That episode in your past is forgotten. An act of impulse. We are all impulsive.
RICHARD.
[Looks fixedly at him.] You called it an act of folly, then—nine years ago. You told me I was hanging a weight about my neck.
ROBERT.
I was wrong. [Suavely.] Here is how the matter stands, Richard. Everyone knows that you ran away years ago with a young girl... How shall I put it?... with a young girl not exactly your equal. [Kindly.] Excuse me, Richard, that is not my opinion nor my language. I am simply using the language of people whose opinions I don’t share.
RICHARD.
Writing one of your leading articles, in fact.