“Why should you suppose that?” he asked. “I am not a moralist myself, nor am I the keeper of your conscience. I don’t think that you could frighten me off just yet.”
“Nevertheless,” Wingrave admitted, “there are times when I fear that we shall not get on together. I begin to suspect that you have a conscience.”
“You are the first,” Aynesworth assured him, “who has ever flattered me to that extent.”
“It may be elastic, of course,” Wingrave continued, “but I suspect its existence. I warn you that association with me will try it hard.”
“I accept the challenge,” Aynesworth answered lightly.
“You are rasher than you imagine,” Wingrave declared. “For instance, I have admitted to you, have I not, that I am interested in my fellow creatures, that I want to mix with them and watch them at their daily lives. Let me assure you that that interest is not a benevolent one.”
“I never fancied that you were a budding philanthropist,” Aynesworth remarked, lighting a fresh cigarette.
“I find myself,” Wingrave continued thoughtfully, “in a somewhat unique position. I am one of the ordinary human beings with whom the world is peopled, but I am not conscious of any of the usual weaknesses of sentiment or morality. For instance, if that gentleman with the red face, who has obviously eaten and drunk too much, were to have an apoplectic fit at the moment, and die in his chair, it would not shock or distress me in the least. On the contrary, I should be disposed to welcome his removal from a world which he obviously does nothing to adorn.”
Aynesworth glanced at the person in question. He was a theatrical agent and financier of stock companies, whom he knew very well by sight.
“I suppose,” Wingrave continued, “that I was born with the usual moral sentiments, and the usual feelings of kinship towards my fellow creatures. Circumstances, however, have wholly destroyed them. To me, men have become the puppets and women the dancing dolls of life. My interest in them, if it exists at all, is malevolent. I should like to see them all suffer exactly as I have suffered. It would interest me exceedingly.”