"Is it?" she asked, still gaily, but with frank interest now
I recounted the episode at length. To put it in plain English, I was using my affair with Matilda (or shall I say her affair with me?) as a basis for an adventure with Dora. At first I took pains to gloss over those details in which I had cut an undignified figure, but I soon dropped all embellishments. The episode stood out so bold in my memory. its appeal to my imagination was so poignant, that I found an intoxicating satisfaction in conveying the facts as faithfully as I knew how. To be telling a complete, unvarnished truth is in itself a pleasure. It is as though there were a special sense of truth and sincerity in our make-up (just as there is a sense of musical harmony, for example), and the gratification of it were a source of delight.
Nor was this my only motive for telling Dora all. I had long since realized that the disdain and mockery with which Matilda handled me had been but a cloak for her interest in my person. So when I was relating to Dora the scenes of my ignominy I felt that the piquant circumstances surrounding them were not unfavorable to me
Anyhow, I was having a singularly intimate talk with Dora and she was listening with the profoundest interest, all the little tricks she employed to disguise it notwithstanding
In depicting the scene of the memorable night when Matilda came to talk to me at my bedside I emphasized the fact that she had called me a ninny
"I did not know what she meant," I said.
Dora tittered, looking at the floor shamefacedly. "The nasty thing!" she said
"What do you mean?" I inquired, dishonestly
"I mean just what I say. She is a nasty thing, that grand lady of yours." And she added another word—the East Side name for a woman of the streets—that gave me a shock
"Don't call her that," I entreated. "Please don't. You are mistaken about her. I assure you she is a highly respectable lady. She has a heart of gold," I added, irrelevantly