There was a value in Philip's friendship Strauss did not recognize so consciously. It gave him a peculiar satisfaction to observe the deference that Philip naively paid to his exhibition of nis vanities; a satisfaction increased by the knowledge that Philip was a "college lad." It was amusing to gibe at "college lads," to be sure, and one didn't actually desire to be a "college lad," yet one could not help vulgarly and secretly envying them.... In any case, it's easy enough to get rid of a chap when he's outlived his use. Hadn't he already made that discovery often enough? Time enough for that ... "Come in, old man, come in! Risk a whiskey and soda?" The tawdry gaieties Strauss had in his command followed in bewildering succession. Books seemed to become less and less important as the furtive weeks passed by. If a memory of his mother came palely before him, he would the more speedily betake himself to the company of Wilfrid Strauss. It was difficult to retain those old musics of Shelley when the brass bellowed windily across the Regent Roller-Skating Rink, and the girls cackled in your ear. No long time elapsed before Strauss had made the rounds of the less reputable cafés, the more shady music halls, and, finally, the Doomington Zoological Gardens, with their alfresco dancing at the borders of the lake. The delights of the gardens were only vitiated for Philip by the inexorable custom which demanded that each male should at rigid intervals kiss his paramour--"strag" was the recognized term--in the ludicrously inadequate shelter of a laurel shrub. There followed more than these. There followed Kate and her lazy eyes and the yelp of her animal laughter. "Deeper, deeper, deeper!" became the insistent burden in Philip's brain. Closer round his feet the mud was gathering. Yet against this one thing he long managed to stand out, though Strauss would return to him, rubbing his eyes sleepily, or smacking his lips with luxurious appreciation. Delicately Strauss would suggest how illogical his position was, how, seeing it was necessary to take the plunge sooner or later, why not now, old sport? Why not? More and more cynical his solitary mind was becoming, ever the more solitary as Strauss and he were more closely entangled in the cult of their pleasures. What else did women mean? They would die, he would die, securely enough all of them, whatsoever happened in the interspace. Alec's old philosophy was gaining new confirmation. What inhibitions did Life hold by which a youth should not probe for the honey of experience, each flower, chaste or poisonous, that opened to the sun or moon?