"You may want it!"
"Of course." He suddenly deserted paradox and levity, and became serious. "My dearest, think of this! Suppose I were to lose you, here in the dark!... Oh, I know all that about duty—I know! I would not kill myself at once, because it would be unkind to Irene. But suppose I lost Irene too?"
"I can't reason it out. But I can't believe it would ever be right to destroy oneself."
"Possibly not, but once one was effectually destroyed...."
"That sounds like rat-paste." Gwen wanted to joke her way out of this region of horrible surmise.
But Adrian was keen on his line of thought. "Exactly!" said he. "Vermin destroyer. I should be the vermin. But once destroyed, what contrition should I have to endure? Remorse is a game that takes two selves to play at it—a criminal and a conscientious person! Suppose the rat-paste had destroyed them both!"
"But would it?"
"Absolute ignorance, whether or no, means an even chance of either. I would risk it, for the sake of that chance of rich, full-blown Non-Entity. Oh, think of it!—after loneliness in the dark!—loneliness that once was full of life...."
"But suppose the other chance—how then?"
"Suppose I worked out as a disembodied spirit—and I quite admit it's as likely as not, neither more nor less—it does not necessarily follow that Malignity against Freethinkers is the only attribute of the Creator. When one contemplates the extraordinary variety and magnitude of His achievements, one is tempted to imagine that He occasionally rises above mere personal feeling. It certainly does seem to me that damning inoffensive Suicides would be an unwarrantable abuse of Omnipotence. The fact is, I have a much better opinion of the Most High than many of His admirers."