Well, the latter two reasons are moot, now. And I'd sooner cut my own throat than have someone's heart bleeding all over me.

[ He doesn't look back at Wash, keeps staring into the trees, but there's a stubborn, hostile sort of look that creeps into his face. He's a funny sort of prideful, Byerly is: he's perfectly happy to humiliate himself, act the drunken fool, for the sake of his country (and his bank account) and doesn't care the least about the scorn of the people around him. But pity? That puts his back up. He's perfectly aware that there's quite a lot about him that can seem pathetic - especially now, especially with all the details known. Under normal circumstances, By makes a great show of laughing at all that pathetic woundedness. But when he can't laugh, when lies are stripped away, there's just a hard and Vorish sort of pride left behind. ]

So perhaps for the sake of your wrinkled brow and for the sake of my annoyance, you can learn to curtail that impulse.