Keegan was innocent of this phenomenon, but nodded. He felt mysteriously saddened by the fact that they never wept for him. Life denied him many things. The creature he had spent the night with had treated him somewhat brutally. She had laughed several times. He sought, however, to make up for the indifference with which he felt himself treated by heightening his contempt for her as a sinner. This necessitated an increase of his contempt for himself as having been a partner in evil. But that was a spiritual gesture made bearable by the wave of remorse it aroused and by the knowledge that remorse was a laudable emotion. Nevertheless, despite the remorse and the rehabilitation it offered his vanity, he continued to feel--life denied him many things. Basine continued, "You could take a girl like that and make something of her. Give her a month." By which he meant give George Cornelius Basine a month and see the miracle he would work. Keegan sighed. He admired George, and his admiration of others always depressed him. He was intelligent enough to know that he admired things he lacked. And yet, he assured himself, he would despise the things in himself that he admired in others. Therefore, it was very probable that he despised them in others, or would at some later day, unless he managed to conceal the fact or lose track of it in the confusion of platitudes which served him for a brain. He looked enviously at his friend, before whom hardened trollops dissolved in tears. "She's only been in the game a little while, you know, Hugh. A convent girl, too. She told me her story. How she got started, you know. A love affair with a Spaniard. A highly connected fellow." Basine prattled on, improvising a melodrama of virtue led astray, editing the vaguely worded generalities of the creature he had left asleep. Eventually he tired of the game and announced abruptly. "Not a car in sight. What do you say we walk, Hugh?" The idea of walking four miles home after a wild night engaged his vanity. Things by which he proved the dubious superiority of his body pleased him. "I think I'll run along," said Keegan. "Nothing doing, Hughie. You come with me. We'll have breakfast at my house." Keegan frowned. There were two sisters and a mother in Basine's home. "I can't." "Why not?" "Oh, because." Basine persisted, gently malicious. It amused him to inconvenience his friend's scruples. It also gave him a feeling of moral supremacy. Keegan was ashamed to go to his home with him. He pitied him for this and yet enjoyed the fact. It was because Keegan didn't feel sure of himself, of his being a man of virtue. And he, Basine, did. There was no question about it in his mind. "Ashamed?" he asked with a smile. "No," Keegan grunted. "Well, you haven't done anything worse than me," by which he meant "We do things differently and I am above things that knock you out."