"Has he to do with mines?" inquired the Chilean, tentatively.
"Yes."
"I know him by sight, señorita."
"Would he be acquainted with this man, Anacleto, do you think?"
"Can't say. José would know anybody whom he could touch for a few
pesetas."
She left him, promising to visit him daily in the future. As she
walked back towards the bridge companion, she met Dr. Christobal. His
fit of ill-humor had gone: he was all smiles; but Elsie, having
extracted such information as Frascuelo possessed, was bent on adding
to her store of knowledge. 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."
Here was candor undiluted. Elsie was speaking without heat. She might
have been reasoning some disputed point in ethics. The Spaniard was
obviously thrown off his guard.
"You seem to demand an explanation," he said with some warmth. "Well,
you shall have it. I am not a man to flinch from the disagreeable. I
admit a sort of impression, I might almost describe it as a conviction,
that Captain Courtenay's manner towards you betokens a growing
admiration."
"This is the wildest folly," cried Elsie in bewilderment. "I--I cannot
imagine what put such a notion into your head."
"Let me at least lay claim to a species of altruism," he replied. "I
can see fifty excellent reasons why our young and good-looking
commander should be drawn to you, nor can I urge one against it."
"But he is already engaged to another woman, so my one reason is worth
more than all your fifty."
"Ah, can that really be so?"