“I haunt the East Side for my own benefit, not for the East-Siders’,” he said. “I want to show you something real for once.”
“You funny man!” said Elaine. “I suppose you think you are sincere in this nonsense.”
Wilfred laughed.
“I warn you it is useless to expect me to be born anew.”
“I don’t,” he said quickly. “This is no deep-laid plot. Your life suffocates me. I am never myself in it. I wanted to have you once where I could breathe: to drag you down to my level if you like. It’s only for an hour. It won’t injure you permanently.”
“I am not afraid of being injured,” she said a little affronted.
“You are afraid of being changed, though.”
“Not at all!” she said stiffly. . . . “Still, I don’t see why I have to be dragged through the slums. I shan’t like it.”
“Oh, your conventional nose will turn up at the smells, and your eyes avert themselves from the dirt,” said Wilfred; “but there is a grand streak of commonness in you if one could only get at it.”
Elaine looked at him a little startled.