He offered no reply to this until they had reached the street and he had called a taxi.
On their way to his apartment he re-opened the subject rather bluntly, remarking that life was not worth living at the price she had mentioned.
“That is the accepted Christian theory,” she replied coolly, “but circumstances alter things.”
“Not such things.”
“Oh, yes, they do. If one is already damned, what difference does anything else make?”
He asked, sarcastically, whether she considered herself already damned.
She did not reply for a few moments, then she said, in a quick, breathless way, that souls have been entrapped through ignorance of evil. And asked him if he did not believe it.
“No,” he said, “I don’t.”
She shook her head. “You couldn’t understand,” she said. “But I’ve made up my mind to one thing; even if my soul has perished, my body shall not die for a long, long time. I mean to live,” she added. “I shall not let my body be slain! They shall not steal life from me, whatever they have done to my soul——”
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” he exclaimed. “Do you actually believe in soul-snatchers and life-stealers?”