JESSE COLLINGS. What will he talk about?
CHAMBERLAIN. Anything that comes into his head: the weather, the garden,
the greenhouses, the theatres. He'll tell me, perhaps, of a book or two
that I ought to read, that he hasn't had time for. He'll say, as you said,
that I'm looking better than he expected. He'll say something handsome
about Austen--quite genuinely meaning it. Then he'll say he's afraid of
tiring me; then he'll go.... Have you noticed how he shakes hands? He
hasn't much of a hand--not a real hand--but he does it, like everything
else, charmingly.
JESSE COLLINGS (_a little crestfallen_). I thought you really liked
him.
CHAMBERLAIN. So I do. Because he has beaten me, is that any reason for
hating him? If it were--after a lifetime of polls and politics, one would
have to be at hate with half the world. No, from his point of view he had
to beat me, and he has done it. What I stick at is that he has proved the
better business man! As I used head and hand--and heart (_and_ heart,
Collings!)--
JESSE COLLINGS. Yes, yes, I know you did.
CHAMBERLAIN. Some people thought I hadn't a heart: "hard as nails" they
called me.... Well, as I used those, so he used his defeats, his doubts,
his indecision, his charm--and left his heart out. That was the real
business-stroke. That did for me.... I liked him: he knew it. Whether he
ever liked me, to this day, I don't know--for certain. If he did, it made
no difference.
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