"I doan't need no pay. If 'twas a matter o' payin', 'twould be a wrong thing to do, I reckon. Theer's auld Bascombe up Paul—him wi' curls o' long hair an' gawld rings in's ears. Gents pays en to take his likeness; an' theer's gals make money so, more'n wan; but faither says 'tis a heathenish way of livin' an' not honest. An'—an' I'd never let nobody paint me else but you, Mister Jan, 'cause you'm different."
"Well, you make me a proud man, Joan. I'm afraid I must be a poor substitute for Joe."
He noticed she had never mentioned her sweetheart since their early interviews, and wanted to ascertain of what nature was Joan's affection for the sailor. He did not yet dream how faint a thing poor Joe had shrunk to be in Joan's mind, or how the present episode in her life was dwarfing and dominating all others, present and past.
Nor did the girl's answer to his remark enlighten him.
"In coorse you an' Joe's differ'nt as can be. You knaws everything seemin'ly an' be a gen'le-man; Joe's only a seafarin' man, an' 'e doan't knaw much 'cept what he's larned from faither. But Joe used to say a sight more'n what you do, for all that."
"I like to hear you talk, Joan; perhaps Joe liked to hear himself talk. Most men do. But, you see, the things you have told me are pleasant to me and they were not to Joe, because he didn't believe in them. Don't look at me, Joan; look right away to the edge of the sea."
"You'm surprised like as I talks to ye, Mister Jan. Doan't ladies talk so free as what I do?"
"Other women talk, but they are very seldom in earnest like you are, Joan. They don't believe half they say, they pretend and make believe; they've got to do so, poor things, because the world they live in is all built up on ancient foundations of great festering lies. The lies are carefully coated over and disinfected as much as possible and quite hidden out of sight, but everybody knows they are there—everybody knows the quaking foundations they tread upon. Civilization means universal civility, I suppose, Joan; and to be civil to everybody argues a great power of telling lies. People call it tact. But I don't like polite society myself, because my nose is sensitive and I smell the stinking basis through all the pretty paint. You and I, Joan, belong to Nature. She is not always civil, but you can trust her; she is seldom polite, but she never says what is not true."
"You talk as though 'e ded'n much like ladies an' gen'lemen, same as you be."
"I don't, and I'm not what you understand by 'a gentleman,' Joan. Gentlemen and ladies let me go among them and mix with them, because I happen to have a great deal of money—thousands and thousands of pounds. That opens the door to their drawing-rooms, if I wanted to open it, but I don't. I've seen them and gone about among them, and I'm sick of them. If a man wishes to know what polite society is let him go into it as a very wealthy bachelor. I'm not 'a gentleman,' you know, Joan, fortunately."