Incidentally, she meant to widen the
doctor's views.
"Why have you taken to lecturing me?" she asked, with a simple
directness which Christobal was not slow to profit by.
"Because, though old enough to be your father, or your elder brother,
as you were kind enough to put it, I have not yet reached years of
discretion."
If candor were needed, he would be candid. Sophistry was worse than
useless with a woman of Elsie's type. The only way to win her was to
be transparently honest. To Christobal, after an experience of a
generation of Chileans, this came as a refreshing novelty.
"You mean, I suppose, that if every one attended to their own affairs
it would be a less spiteful world? I am inclined to agree with you.
Unhappily, life is largely made up of these minor evils. Yet I should
have thought that the desperate conditions under which we exist at this
hour might protect me from uncharitableness."
"You are pleased to be severe."
"No; it is the last privilege of danger that shams should vanish. Yet
we plumb the depths of absurdity when we contest the right of any
woman, even a young and unmarried one, to appreciate all that a brave
man has done and is doing to save her life.
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