"Self-flattery. Food for that vanity
which makes the world go round. Meantime, what do you think is going to
happen to the treasure floating about the gulf with the great Capataz
and the great politician?"
"Why are you uneasy about it, doctor?"
"I uneasy! And what the devil is it to me? I put no spiritual value into
my desires, or my opinions, or my actions. They have not enough
vastness to give me room for self-flattery. Look, for instance, I should
certainly have liked to ease the last moments of that poor woman. And
I can't. It's impossible. Have you met the impossible face to face--or
have you, the Napoleon of railways, no such word in your dictionary?"
"Is she bound to have a very bad time of it?" asked the chief engineer,
with humane concern.
Slow, heavy footsteps moved across the planks above the heavy hard wood
beams of the kitchen. Then down the narrow opening of the staircase made
in the thickness of the wall, and narrow enough to be defended by one
man against twenty enemies, came the murmur of two voices, one faint and
broken, the other deep and gentle answering it, and in its graver tone
covering the weaker sound.
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