Page:Love and Mr. Lewisham – Wells (1899).djvu/176

164 "It is cheating," he said. "Well—even if what you do is not cheating, it is delusion—unconscious cheating. Even if there is something in it, it is wrong. True or not, it is wrong. Why don't they thought-read each other? Why should they want you? Your mind is your own. It is sacred. To probe it!—I won't have it! I won't have it! At least you are mine to that extent. I can't think of you like that—bandaged. And that little fool pressing his hand on the back of your neck and asking questions. I won't have it! I would rather kill you than that."

"They don't do that!"

"I don't care! that is what it will come to. The bandage is the beginning. People must not get their living in that way anyhow. I've thought it out. Let them thought-read their daughters and hypnotise their aunts, and leave their typewriters alone."

"But what am I to do?"

"That's not it. There are things one must not suffer anyhow, whatever happens! Or else—one might be made to do anything. Honour! Just because we are poor—Let him dismiss you! Let him dismiss you. You can get another place—"

"Not at a guinea a week."

"Then take less."

"But I have to pay sixteen shillings every week."