"I flatter myself that they are fairly clean. That alone is an interesting experiment. Dirt, I firmly believe to be the root of all evil."
"Ah, we come down to the bed-rock of ethics at last, don't we? Well, how is the laboratory getting on? Have you found traces of original sin in protoplasm?"
"I think I have spotted perverse tendencies," Perior smiled.
"Michael a Calvinist, my dear child!" Lady Paton looked up from her knitting in amazement.
"An illogical Calvinist. Instead of burning sinners he washes them! and I've no doubt that to some of them the latter form of purification is as disagreeable as the former. He puts them into model cottages, with Morris wall-papers."
"I beg your pardon. No Morris wall-papers."
"Camelia, my dear, how extravagantly you talk," said Lady Paton, her smile reflecting happily Perior's good-humor. Michael did not mind the teasing--liked it perhaps; and though she did not understand she smiled. Camelia sank down to a low chair beside her mother's, and taking her mother's hand she held it up solemnly, saying, "Mamma, Mr. Perior is a tissue of inconsistencies. He despises humanity; and he works for it like a nigger."
"You are an impressionist, Camelia. Don't lay on your primaries so glaringly."
"Confess that you are a philanthropist, though an unwilling one."
"I confess nothing," said Perior, looking across the room at Mary with a smile that seemed to invite her participation in his well-borne baiting.
"Is not your life one long effort to help humanity--not _la sainte canaille_ with you--but, and hence your inconsistency, the gross _canaille_, the dull, treacherous, diabolical _canaille_?"
"Not to hurt it, rather; and as one is oneself gross, dull, treacherous, and diabolical, that may well engage one's energies. There would be less cant and more comfort in the world if we would merely avoid treading upon our neighbor's corns. Let us cultivate the negative virtues. What do you say, Mary? You have a right to a strong opinion, since I never saw you hurt anybody."
Mary, thus unexpectedly appealed to, started, grew red, and laughed an embarrassed and apprehensive laugh. Camelia cast a glance upon the long strip of rather foolish embroidery lengthening under her cousin's fingers.