herself delicately to discover these
facts. Golightly made an elaborate effort to put her off.
He threw his head back in his chair and watched the faint
rings of his cigarette curling into indistinguishability
against the ceiling, and said he was only the dust that
blew about the narrow streets of the world, and why should
she care to know which way the wind took him! Lighting
his third, he said, as bitterly as that engrossment would
permit him, that the sooner--puff--it was over--puff--the
sooner--puff--to sleep; and when the lighting was quite
satisfactorily accomplished he laughed harshly. "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. I said to
mine last Thursday, 'But I must be clean, Mrs. Binkley!'
and the creature replied, 'I don't see at all, Mr. Ticks'
--she has an odious habit of calling me Mr. Ticks--'why
you shouldn't go dirty occasional.' She seemed to think
she had made a joke!"

"They live to be paid," Elfrida said, with hard philosophy,
and then she questioned him delicately about his play.
Could she induce him to show it to her, some day? Her
opinion was worth nothing really--oh no, absolutely
nothing--but it would be a pleasure if Golightly were
_sure_ he didn't mind.

Golightly found a difficulty in selecting phrases rep