Roland could only ask too many questions and Howard was only too ready to answer them. He had seldom enjoyed such a splendid audience. He was not thought much of in the school, and to tell the truth he was not much of a fellow. He had absorbed the worst characteristics of a bad house. He would probably after he had left spend his evenings hanging about private bars and the stage doors of second-class music halls. But he was an interesting companion in the sanatorium, and he and Roland discussed endlessly the eternally fascinating subject of girls.
“The one thing that you must never do with a girl is to be shy,” Howard said. “That’s the one fatal thing that she’ll never forgive. You can do anything you like with any girl if only you go the right way about it. She doesn’t care whether you are good-looking or rich or clever, but if she feels that you know more than she does, that she can trust herself in your hands.... It’s all personality. If a girl tries to push you away when you kiss her, don’t worry her, kiss her again; she only wants to be persuaded; she’d despise you if you stopped; girls are weak themselves, so they hate weakness. You can take it from me, Whately, that girls are an easy game when you know the way to treat them. It would surprise you if you could only know what they were thinking. You’ll see them sitting at your father’s table, so demure, with their, ‘Yes, Mr. Howard,’ and their ‘No, Mr. Howard.’ You’d think they’d stepped out of the pages of a fairy book, and yet get those same girls alone, and in the right mood, my word....”
Inflammatory, suggestive stuff: the pimp in embryo.
And Roland was one of those on whom such persons thrive. He had always kept straight at school; he was not clever nor imaginative, but he was ambitious: and he had realized early that if he wanted to become a power in the school he must needs be a success at games. He had kept clear of anything that had seemed likely to impair his prowess on the field. But it was different for him here in the sanatorium, with no exercise and occupation. In a very little while he had become thoroughly roused. Howard had enjoyed a certain number of doubtful experiences; had read several of the books that appear in the advertisements of obscure French papers as “rare and curious.” He had in addition a good imagination. Within two days Roland’s one idea was to pick up at the first opportunity the threads of the romance he had so callously flung aside.