“Don’t waste your pity, then,” Holderness declared. “God will look after these. It’s the women with the pearl necklaces and the scorn in their eyes who’re looking for hell. Your friend in the electric brougham, for instance. Can’t you see her close her eyes and draw away her skirts if she should brush up against one of these?”
“It’s hard to blame her,” Macheson declared.
Holderness looked down at him pityingly.
“Man,” he said, “you’re a long way down in the valley. You’ll have to climb. Vice and virtue are little else save relative terms. They number their adherents by accident rather than choice.”
“You mean that it is all a matter of temptation?”
Holderness laughed. They had passed into the land of silent streets. Their own rooms were close at hand.
“Wait a little time,” he said. “Some day you’ll understand.”