"Oh, you need not be indignant; you shall make it good by giving me a
bronze group. You began the story of Samson; finish it.--Do a Delilah
cutting off the Jewish Hercules' hair. And you, who, if you will
listen to me, will be a great artist, must enter into the subject.
What you have to show is the power of woman. Samson is a secondary
consideration. He is the corpse of dead strength. It is Delilah
--passion--that ruins everything. How far more beautiful is that
_replica_--That is what you call it, I think--" She skilfully
interpolated, as Claude Vignon and Stidmann came up to them on hearing
her talk of sculpture--"how far more beautiful than the Greek myth is
that _replica_ of Hercules at Omphale's feet.--Did Greece copy Judaea,
or did Judaea borrow the symbolism from Greece?"

"There, madame, you raise an important question--that of the date of
the various writings in the Bible. The great and immortal Spinoza
--most foolishly ranked as an atheist, whereas he gave mathematical
proof of the existence of God--asserts that the Book of Genesis and
all the political history of the Bible are of the time of Moses, and
he demonstrates the interpolated passages by philological evidence.
And he was thrice stabbed as he went into the synagogue."

"I had no idea I was so learned," said Valerie, annoyed at this
interruption to her _tete-a-tete_.

"Women know everything by instinct," replied Claude Vignon.

"Well, then, you promise me?" she said to Steinbock, taking his hand
with the timidity of a girl in love.