Assume, for the sake
of argument, that you loved me and that you plucked from your nature
your religion, your fidelity to your house, your love for your
brother, and gave yourself to me. You would stand appalled at the
sacrifice until you realized that you had come to me only because
it would have been more difficult to stay away. You conquer the
passionate cry of love,--the strongest the human compound has ever
voiced,--and you are miserably happy for the rest of your life no
attitude being so pleasing to the soul as the attitude of martyrdom.
Many a man and woman looks with some impatience for the last good-bye
to be said, so sweet is the prospect of sadness, of suffering, of
resignation."
I was aghast at his audacity, but I saw that Chonita was fascinated.
Her egotism was caressed, and her womanhood thrilled. "Are we all such
shams as that?" was what she said. "You make me despise myself."
"Not yourself, but a great structure--of which you are but a
grain--with a faulty foundation. Don't despise yourself. Curse the
builders who shoveled those stones together."
He left her then, and she told me to go to bed; she wanted to sit a
while and think.
"He makes you think too much," I said. "Better forget what he says as
soon as you can. He is a very disturbing influence."
But she made me no reply, and sat there staring at the floor.
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