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?” The tense eagerness in his voice might have warned her, were it not that she was shocked by the bitterness which welled up in her heart. She was amazed by this introspective glimpse; it alarmed her; she must convince herself, at all costs, that she had spoken truly. Although the evidence she tendered was of dubious value, she strove to advance her argument further.