I kissed her fingers. “You have to learn a lesson, my dear, which will do you an enormous amount of good.”
“What is that?”
“The glorious duty of selfishness.”
Then the minute hand of the clock marked the end of the interview, and the nurse appeared on the click and turned me out.
After that I saw her daily; gradually our interviews lengthened, and as she recovered strength our talks wandered from the little incidents and interests of the sick-room to the general topics of our lives. I told her of all that had happened to me since her flight. And I told her that I wanted her and her only of all women.
“Why—oh, why, did you do such a foolish thing?” I asked.
“I did it for your good.”
“My dear, have you ever heard the story of the tender-hearted elephant? No? It was told in a wonderful book published years ago and called 'The Fables of George Washington AEsop.' This is it. There was once an elephant who accidentally trod on the mother of a brood of newly-hatched chickens. Her tender heart filled with remorse for what she had done, and, overflowing with pity for the fluffy orphans, she wept bitterly, and addressed them thus: 'Poor little motherless things, doomed to face the rough world without a parent's care, I myself will be a mother to you.' Whereupon, gathering them under her with maternal fondness, she sat down on the whole brood.”
The unbandaged half of her face lit up with a wan smile. “Did I do that?”
“I didn't conceive it possible that you could love me except for the outside things.”