He did not wait for her to reply but went on:
“I’m wondering why we mess about with it. What’s the good of it, all? Who are you? I don’t know. Who am I? You don’t know. We live in a beastly dirty town and we wander about like lost souls. And because we be lost souls we take anything that comes along—you me, I you. Is it good enough? It’s all wrong. But what’s right? . . . It’s fun, I suppose. Fun! . . . But what else is there?”
He took the girl’s hand.
“I tell you what. I’m damned sorry for you.”
“Of course,” said Annie Lipsett. “Of course, you’re a gentleman.”
And Frederic laughed. He told himself that he was an idiot, and that all that was not his affair. He had brought this girl here, just as all the other young men in the place had brought all the other young women, to forget, to escape for a little while, to lose all thought of the beastliness of life down below in the town. It was beastly. Everything was so dirty, and everybody was so poor and so tired. . . . He took the girl in his arms and held her very close and whispered silly talk to her, and soon she was sighing and lying and nestling to him.
They were ten minutes late in their return to the lamp-post by the church, and Haslam and the tall girl were very ill at ease and silent. Annie Lipsett clung to Frederic’s arm and they walked down to the bishop’s palace. There they parted. Frederic kissed her and she clung to him. The tall girl led her away and they vanished into the night.
As they turned their faces homewards Haslam said:
“Gawd! I have had a rummy time. I couldn’t touch her without her starting on the crying game. Sha’n’t see her again.”
“No. I suppose not,” said Frederic.