“No, it is n’t likely,” said Joyce. “I can only be deeply sorry for you.”
“I wonder whether you could tell what it is to me to talk to you even in this way. Oh, God! if you knew how I longed to see you!”
“Why did you act as you did toward me?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Don’t ask me. Because every woman’s got a tiger in her somewhere, I suppose. I used to think men were the brutes. Now I know it’s women. We’re all the same. I hate myself. I wish you would take me up a back street and kill me. This is a hell of a life. Do you remember the last words you said to me? ‘Some people are better dead.’ It’s the truest thing I ’ve ever heard from man or woman.”
“It’s easy enough to get out of the world, if we want to,” said Joyce. “But perhaps it’s better to fight it out. You must make an effort and get out of this life—a proud girl like you.”
“I have n’t much pride left.”
“I thought so too. But it takes a lot of killing. I ’ve come out fairly straight. Why shouldn’t you?”
“I ’ll come out straight, the only way—a corpse. But I’m glad things are better with you. It relieves me to know it. I thought I had sent you to the devil, and that’s why I went there myself, I suppose. Well, I won’t keep you any longer. I know you hate being seen with me.”
“Can’t I do anything for you?” said Joyce, feeling in his pocket.
“Yes—flay me alive by offering me money. You did once—do you remember?”