"'Can you show me something just as good?' I asked. 'Half as good? A tenth as good? I want to be straight. I'd rather be straight. Here's a proposition. You folks have got more than you can ever spend on yourselves. Pool a little of it—ten of you—and give me a job that you don't figure sinful. I'm willing to work. I've proved that to you. Guarantee me something a tenth as good as the wages I've mentioned, at the end of ten years—I'll not be thirty then; I'll take a chance on still being able to enjoy 'em—guarantee me that and I'll scrub floors for you in the meantime.'
"And then they pulled the prize crack of them all. I hadn't heard it before. It was a new one on me.
"'Virtue,' they said, 'virtue is its own reward.'
"Honest, I laughed. I couldn't help it. I didn't want them to see that I was wise to them. I didn't even want to hurt their feelings. It was pretty serious to them, this step that I was taking. But I couldn't help it. I laughed. And then I got mad.
"'Virtue is its own reward? Is it?' I asked. 'Is it? Go out there and stand on Fifth Avenue,' I said, 'and watch 'em roll by. Your daughter! And yours! And yours! Ten thousand of 'em, no younger than I am, no prettier, and no more moral right now. Go out and watch them roll by and then try to tell me that. Violets and silver fox! Is virtue their only reward?'
"Well, they'd not meant it the same way, in my case. I kept getting 'em wrong, they said. They'd meant it in the abstract, applied to me. 'But what about the wages of sin, in my case?' Had they been abstract there? 'Death—the gutter.' That was concrete, wasn't it? It sounded like bedrock to me. Then they wanted to explain. I wouldn't let 'em.
"'If you had been on the level I could have respected you,' I said. 'If you had told me, sure this is a selfish world and we are of it, I'd have liked you fine. I'm strong for a rascal, if he's an honest rascal. But I hate a hypocrite.'
"I'd got 'em between me and the ropes where I wanted 'em, at last.
"'I've wasted two whole years,' I shot it over from the shoulder. 'Two whole years, trying to compete with them'—I nodded toward the Avenue—'according to their own rules. And you've been coaching me, when all the while you knew I was licked, that way, before I started. Now let them compete with me, according to my rules, for a change. Let them run to their dressmakers and order their gowns a little lower and their skirts a little higher and lie to themselves and say they must keep in style, when they know they've got to keep their men and don't care how they do it. Let them try it—damn 'em!'
"I shouldn't have cussed. But I couldn't help it. I was bitter. If they'd only been frank and man-to-man about it. The toughest birds in the world stand in the middle of the ring and shake hands before they try to murder each other. If they'd just said, 'This is no pretty game, this is a finish fight,' I'd have loved 'em for it. I guess women can't be frank and man-to-man.