I could not stand it any longer; I had to try to move him to kindness.
"Sometimes one gives willingly to a man one has never had anything from. Misery and want in one we like and admire have a very strong claim."
"I do not see that there is any claim at all," he cried bitterly, as if the very word maddened him, "and I am not going to pamper him any more. He could earn all the money he wants if he would only write; but he won't do anything. He is lazy, and getting lazier and lazier every day; and he drinks far too much. He is intolerable. I thought when he kept asking me for that money to-night, he was like an old prostitute."
"Good God!" I cried. "Good God! Has it come to that between you?"
"Yes," he repeated, not heeding what I said, "he was just like an old fat prostitute," and he gloated over the word, "and I told him so."
I looked at the man but could not speak; indeed there was nothing to be said. Surely at last, I thought, Oscar Wilde has reached the lowest depth. I could think of nothing but Oscar; this hard, small, bitter nature made Oscar's suffering plain to me.
"As I can do no good," I said, "do you mind letting me sleep? I'm simply tired to death."
"I'm sorry," he said, looking for his hat; "will you come out in the morning and see the 'gees'?"
"I don't think so," I replied, "I'm incapable of a resolution now, I'm so tired I would rather sleep. I think I'll go up to Paris in the morning. I have something rather urgent to do."