Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/113

Rh strong attractions. All you people come. I like all the horrors.'

'The horrors?'

'Those you all—you know the set I mean, your set—show me with as good a conscience as if I had no more feeling than a letter-box.'

He looked quite excited at the way she put it. 'Oh, they don't know!'

'Don't know I 'm not stupid? No, how should they?'

'Yes, how should they?' said the Captain sympathetically. 'But isn't "horrors" rather strong?'

'What you do is rather strong!' the girl promptly returned.

'What I do?'

'Your extravagance, your selfishness, your immorality, your crimes,' she pursued, without heeding his expression.

'I say!' her companion showed the queerest stare.

'I like them, as I tell you—I revel in them. But we needn't go into that,' she quietly went on; 'for all I get out of it is the harmless pleasure