"What do you think about me, really?" he blurted out.
"I don't know," said Pen.
"Well, it's true nobody really knows anybody else," he said..... "I wish I could get myself over to you. Since I've known you I've realized more than ever what a lot there is missing in my life. Nobody knows me.... There's a sort of wall cuts me off from everybody."
It was very confusing to Pen's ideas to discover that a man could be a black villain and sentimental too. "Oh, I wish he wouldn't!" she thought uncomfortably. Aloud she said rather sharply:
"Well, it's your own fault, isn't it?"
He chuckled. "I love the way you come back at me," he said. "... I suppose it is my own fault. I ought to climb over the wall. But it's difficult. They put me behind it young."
After awhile he said: "It's a great thought, isn't it, to think of having somebody you could be absolutely honest with?"
"Of course," said Pen. She was reminded of Blanche and Spike.
As Riever talked on she began to see how he reconciled villainy and sentiment in his mind.
"Of course it would have to be a person with a strong mind. For when I say honesty I don't mean all this sickening cant about goodness and unselfishness and meekness that the church hands out. Nobody takes that seriously any more. Man is by nature a rapacious animal. Out for what he can get. Well, his highest function must be to realize his nature. Therefore I say that the highest type of man is the man who gets what he wants regardless."