"I shall
think," said Elfrida earnestly, "if you do not tell me
how things are with you, since they are bad, that you
are not a true Bohemian--that you have scruples."
"You know better--at least I hope you do--than to charge
me with that," Golightly returned, with an inflection
full of reproachful meaning. "I--I drank myself to sleep
last night, Miss Bell. When the candle flickered out I
thought that it was all over--curious sensation. This
morning," he added, looking through his half-closed
eyelashes with sardonic stage effect, "I wished it had
been."
"Tell me," Elfrida insisted gently; and looking attentively
at his long, thin fingers Mr. Ticke then told her. He
told her tersely, it did not take long; and in the end
he doubled up his hand and pulled a crumpled cuff down
over it. "To me," he said, "a thing like that represents
the worst of it. When I look at that I feel capable of
crime. I don't know whether you'll understand, but the
consideration of what my finer self suffers through
sordidness of this sort sometimes makes me think that to
rob a bank would be an act of virtue."
"I understand," said Elfrida.
"Washerwomen as a class are callous. I suppose the alkalies
they use finally penetrate to their souls.
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