This is even easier than he'd expected. She's just eating it up, isn't she? Christ, these goody-good women! They're all the same.
But he can't allow himself to become complacent with her. That's when he'll slip, when he'll make a mistake and she'll figure out she's being had. So Joker keeps himself fully immersed in his ruse, letting a surface level part of himself be duped by his own con so that he can, hopefully, continue to dupe her. This is one of the great secrets to his success as a liar: he allows himself to believe his own bullshit, at least temporarily.
So when he meets her eyes now, his own look uncharacteristically vulnerable, because for a moment, part of him actually is. He looks at Carol like she's the first person in years who's really seen him, who's bothered to look beyond the clown get-up and the criminal record and extend any compassion whatsoever to the man trapped underneath it all.
"You know... I think I almost believe you."
He licks his lips and averts his eyes again. He deliberately summons the feelings he used to have when he was a much younger man, that sense of shyness, almost awkwardness, in the presence of a beautiful woman. With Carol sitting there, gorgeous and leaning toward him and looking so certain of herself, it's not difficult to do. Joker's shoulders drop slightly: he looks flustered, uncertain. Like he wants to ask her to prom but has no idea how to go about it.
"But I... Well, I'm not much good at trying to be good," he explains, and he's fiddling with his teacup now in order to display his (thoroughly fictional) nerves. "Never really bothered with it before. Never saw the point. And if we try this... I mean, I'll almost certainly get it wrong. Repeatedly. Might lash out at you for trying to help me through it, too—I don't know."
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But he can't allow himself to become complacent with her. That's when he'll slip, when he'll make a mistake and she'll figure out she's being had. So Joker keeps himself fully immersed in his ruse, letting a surface level part of himself be duped by his own con so that he can, hopefully, continue to dupe her. This is one of the great secrets to his success as a liar: he allows himself to believe his own bullshit, at least temporarily.
So when he meets her eyes now, his own look uncharacteristically vulnerable, because for a moment, part of him actually is. He looks at Carol like she's the first person in years who's really seen him, who's bothered to look beyond the clown get-up and the criminal record and extend any compassion whatsoever to the man trapped underneath it all.
"You know... I think I almost believe you."
He licks his lips and averts his eyes again. He deliberately summons the feelings he used to have when he was a much younger man, that sense of shyness, almost awkwardness, in the presence of a beautiful woman. With Carol sitting there, gorgeous and leaning toward him and looking so certain of herself, it's not difficult to do. Joker's shoulders drop slightly: he looks flustered, uncertain. Like he wants to ask her to prom but has no idea how to go about it.
"But I... Well, I'm not much good at trying to be good," he explains, and he's fiddling with his teacup now in order to display his (thoroughly fictional) nerves. "Never really bothered with it before. Never saw the point. And if we try this... I mean, I'll almost certainly get it wrong. Repeatedly. Might lash out at you for trying to help me through it, too—I don't know."