“It can’t, which makes me the bigger fool. To think of my work being knocked on the head, and to so little purpose! Especially,” he added naïvely, “when one has to do that sort of thing on the cheap.”
“Fellows like you feel that sort of thing always, even if they have a pocket full of coin. You see, you are too fastidious and sensitive to enjoy vice properly; and yet the queer thing is, it debases you sooner than it does men of coarser make, unless it kills you right off the reel, as it mostly does. Stronger men have things to keep them up, you fellows haven’t; they get brutalized if you like, but it is the brutalization of men, not of women.”
Here Brydon winced, possibly Strange saw him—he took no notice, however, but went on coolly:
“They don’t get rotten-soft, and corrupt. Another thing that’s against you; your father’s a parson, and his father before him, and your mother is a parson’s daughter.”
“Yes—what on earth has that to do with it?”
“A lot. With inherited conscience and spiritual feelings, and a sneaking regard for hell fire in every drop of your blood, things were sure to be made pretty hot for you in next to no time. Small wonder your work went to the devil!”
“I suppose it’s all the brutal truth,” said Brydon.
“Did you expect this?” he asked with sudden shyness. “Are you disappointed?”
“I am too old ever to be disappointed in any fellow, probably there’s not a thing you have done I wouldn’t myself have done had I been in your skin. Now the question is, what’s to fit you for work again?”
“I think,” said the boy dolefully, “the best thing I could do would be to cut my throat.”