He nodded. "Just getting back to normal."
She bent to make a brief, repelled examination of Mulvaney. "Can't something be done for this man?"
"There isn't any hope for him," Bryan returned. "He's in the same condition as the others." He studied Joyce for a moment, realizing that she was oddly changed—somehow deliberate, hostile. "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to see what your girl-friend looked like, Terry. I sneaked past the police in front of the park." Her voice took on a sudden accusing edge. "I saw what that half-naked witch did to this policeman. And you helped her, Terry. I saw you knock him down so he couldn't shoot her. It was murder, Terry—murder! He isn't dead yet, but you know he's going to be."
"I had to stop him," Bryan protested. "The girl deserved more of a chance than she was getting. I told you she really didn't know she was doing wrong. I thought I could reason with her, keep her from doing any more harm—but things happened too fast."
Joyce shook her head coldly. "It's still murder. And you're in it up to your eyebrows, Terry. If the police find out what happened here, they'll lock you up and throw away the key."
In another moment her features softened, her voice grew pleading. "It isn't too late, Terry. Forget that girl. Tip off the police so they'll be ready for her the next time she shows up. They don't have to know exactly what you saw—or what you did. We'll keep that to ourselves, Terry. We'll start over again ... you and I."
Bryan stared at her, shocked by the bargain she was suggesting. She was asking him to doom Leeta, to sacrifice his pride and his hopes in return for her silence. It was a kind of blackmail, in which she was seeking to use the tragedy of Mulvaney for her own purposes. He found in this a wrong somehow vastly greater than in what Leeta had done—for this was knowing, calculating.
He had always regarded Joyce as a friend, understanding and sympathetic. Now he realized these qualities were only a veneer, and in the stress of what had happened the veneer had been stripped away. An underlying ugliness was revealed—an ugliness that seemed to be the very foundation of a world he had come to despise.