to be what the men want and their eyes so worried. Not all though. Some are tough and seem to enjoy it. The Mobile girl, and Day Joy. I bet they'll get what they want, whatever it is. As for the other girls, they're too stupid to do any kind of work, except have little piddling jobs, and they wouldn't be satisfied with that any more. They've tasted high society. Am I like that?" she asked, breaking into shuddering sobs.
Vida's flesh crawled at Lucy's hopeless moaning. She wanted a hot bath herself.
Last night I wanted to say something to reassure Lucy—and myself. I think women are unbalanced without men, or with men they don't love. Does a woman become unbalanced with too many men? Perhaps there is a door locked in one to which only one man has the key. Lucy always has been so levelheaded. Was she like that because she never has been in love? She has said to me that men vary little. "They have their little excitements—one likes this, one likes that—but in the end it's the same." If that is true then perhaps the search for love is silly, there surely is more to life than that. Look at Vermillion—he seems to take love in his stride. Perhaps that's one difference between men and women. One thing is clear: all of Lucy's experience with men has left her unprepared for Horta's evil maneuver. Is experience then not the great teacher it is cracked up to be? I suppose unless you are evil you never are prepared for evil. It is extraordinary though what a shock evil is, each time you are confronted by it. Horta, I suppose, is shocked by goodness, that's why she has to destroy it, so she can continue to believe there's no such essence.
So all I could say to Lucy was "What do you care what some people say about you? You know it isn't true. Nothing that Horta or anyone else says or does can touch that."
"Well," Lucy said bitterly, "I went to the party thinking I was somebody myself, but among all those girls I just was another whore to the men. I've never felt like this before. I thought nothing could faze me. I'm certainly glad you're with me. I don't know what I'd do if you ever left."
