After the rehearsal he had an appointment with the spotty-faced youth to meet two girls on Kersley Moors, a high, dark, treeless common just outside the northern suburbs. From Kersley the road ran into the town past the bishop's palace, and here nightly young men and maidens foregathered and stalked each other and exchanged mysterious greetings, sometimes stopping and talking, sometimes passing and disappearing down the dark lanes that enclosed the bishop's huge garden. The spotty-faced youth, who had been impressed by Frederic's braggadocio of the things that were much better done in France, had introduced him to this exchange and mart of foolish emotions and transitory affections. They went there in search of pleasure and adventure, and they generally found them, though more puny and debased than they were prepared to admit. They went there now only half believing that the girls with whom they had made their assignation would turn up, for they had seemed so superior to the usual quarry. They did not know their names or where they lived. It was enough for them that both the girls were pretty and responsive to such wit as they could produce. The spotty-faced youth's father was a doctor, and he had three brothers, and on the way he regaled Frederic with tales of their escapades and the narrow squeaks they had had, and the great score it was to have a father who was a man of the world and understood these things. He became so foul-mouthed that Frederic stopped him. "If you don't shut up I shall go home." "Right ho!" said the spotty-faced youth. "Only I did think you had a better sense of fun. You didn't seem to mind Old Lawrie talking about Burns and Meg." "That's different. That's poetry." "Is it?" "Yes. Like 'Lucrece' and 'Venus and Adonis.'" "Well. They're pretty hot." "Oh! Shut up." Frederic did not rightly understand why he was so indignant with his companion. He was conscious of a difference between the two things--frank acceptance and fumbling--but he could not put his finger on it, nor could he discover why for the first time in years of folly he should feel a sense of shame. It grew on him as they walked up the Kersley Road and, by the second lamp-post past the bishop's gate, saw the two young women arm-in-arm pacing slowly in front of them. "Bags I the tall one?" said the spotty-faced youth. Before Frederic could reply they had come up with the girls and his companion had greeted them with a tag from the pantomime of the last winter. "We thought you wouldn't come," said the tall girl. "No fear," said the spotty-faced youth. "Trust me when I've spotted a winner."