and that fact has taken me off my feet. I am at a loss to make out what sort of man you are at all."
"An enemy! An enemy, you call her!" said Shiana. "She is not an enemy, and well you know she is not. It is not you that put her in my way. It is God that put her in my way, praise be to Him! If you were going to put someone like her in my way, no fear but it would be a very different sort of person from her. If you were choosing an enemy for me you would choose an enemy who would be a real enemy. Drop your prevarication. Tell the truth. You do not like the truth, of course, but you have to tell the truth in that chair, much as you hate it. Tell me the truth. Why have you called her an enemy? And why have you said that it was you that put her in my way?"
"For all your wisdom and your understanding, you do not understand my business," said the Black Man. "You imagine that it is from his enemy ill-luck and misfortune and evil come upon a man. You are mistaken. Friendship and friendliness and love and affection are the things that drag half the world to their bane, or rather the greater part of the world. A man will be on his guard against his enemy, but he will not be on his guard against his friend. If a man gets harmful advice from his enemy, he will not take the advice; but a man will do a thing at the instance of his friend which he would never do of his own accord. For one man who does what is bad for him, out of his own counsel, there are twenty who are put up to do it by the counsel of some friend. If they were let alone, perhaps, they might do what was good for
