“Do I seem so terribly old then?” asked Phil.
“Oh, no!––not that exactly, but old to be starting in to learn a trade. Sol Hanson isn’t so very much older than you can be, but he has been a journeyman smith ever since I have known him.” She stopped. “Oh, I don’t know–––You mustn’t mind what I say, Mr. Ralston. I guess I am a bit of a silly. I let my foolish tongue run away with me at times. I just say what I feel; just what comes to my mind.”
“If everyone did that,” remarked Phil, “we should have less dissension in the world.”
“And we would make lots of enemies,” she put in.
“We might offend those we think are our friends, and we might alarm each other by mirroring our tremendous deficiencies, but, in the finish, it would make for sincerity and truthfulness––two qualities of nature sadly in the background nowadays. Don’t you agree with me?”
“Of course you are right!” said Eileen, “but you talk so earnestly one would almost imagine that you had suffered at some time through the insincerity and untruthfulness of one you had trusted.”
This was getting too near home for Phil.
“None of us have to live very long to do that. I have often thought, though, that if, when we looked into the mirror, we could see our natures as well as our reflected features, our conceit would suffer a severe shock.”
“A woman, maybe!” said Eileen, “but nothing can ever cure mortal man of his conceit.”
“You think a man more conceited than a woman?”