Every one but Charles was glad when the drive came to an end.
Under her large black hat the strange girl's eyes, deep with a shining emptiness, gazed into Paul's. Paul, glancing at her cautiously, felt that the eyes were filled with a velvet dust into which he sank without finding anything. It was as if he were falling, leaden and meaningless, through them.
She had a snub nose with coarse wide nostrils. Her mouth was thick-lipped and over red. She was given to abrupt hilarity when she showed her strong teeth in a peculiarly irrelevant laugh. Her voice was hoarse. When she threw back her head her amusement made her broad white throat quiver. Then her prominent breasts shook heavily. Her arms, bare below the elbow, looked as though they were meant to be powerful but had grown useless. Her insolence was stupid, but Paul envied it—even though it irritated him that she was so bored with him. They had sat on the same bench in a public square, and after they had fallen into conversation he had asked her to go to dinner with him. Her name was Carrie. She called him "son". She was "out for a good time," she said, but she was "broke".
Paul invited her to the working men's restaurant where he was going himself. To dramatize his isolation from his own group, he wore old clothes, brogans, and his school cap. His appearance suggested a mechanic's assistant. He was ashamed of his secret desire to admit his disguise to her. His uncle was a corporation lawyer who was becoming prominent. Paul had constantly to fight against an ingrained class vanity. Petty bourgeois! Not even snobbishness of the first order! When he had to face it in himself he wanted to die. No use! Hell of a world! Any disillusionment with himself strengthened his bitterness toward those of his own kind.
When Paul left Carrie he walked into the dark park and seated himself on a bench. The city seemed miles away, sunk in light. There was an iron stillness in the black trunks of the trees that rose about him. Over him the thick foliage hung oppressively in dark arrested clouds.
Despair. He wanted Carrie to admire him. He saw himself strong and bitter in the possession of all that Carries understand. He wanted to be kind. He was a great man, alone, a little proud of his madness. Child! He wanted to go far away—to die. Hate. I can't die! His heart beat loudly and the memory of Carrie was remote again.
In the hidden street Salvationists were passing. He heard hymn tunes and the beat of drums.
Dark angel. I want to save men. He thought of the women, strange in their tight dark dresses. He wanted to save them. Emotionalism. Rot. He tried to remember the working class and economic determinism. Facts. They kept things out. There was a dramatic pride in being outcast, in feeling himself definitely against his aunt and Uncle Archie. That kid, May. Dead. He gave himself to a sense of loathing that was gorgeous and absolute. His relaxation was drunken—like a dream.