He found Geary alone in their room, cribbing "'Horace" again.

"Ah, you bet," Geary said. "I shook those chippies. I sized them up
right away. I was clever enough for that. They were no good. I thought
you would get enough of it."

"Oh, I don't know," said Vandover after a while, as he settled to his
drawing. "She was pretty common, but anyhow I don't want to help bring
down a poor girl like that any lower than she is already." This saying
struck Vandover as being very good and noble, and he found occasion to
repeat it to young Haight the next day.

But within three days of this, at the time when Vandover would have
fancied himself farthest from such a thing, he underwent a curious
reaction. On a certain evening, moved by an unreasoned instinct, he
sought out the girl who had just filled him with such deep pity and such
violent disgust, and that night did not come back to the room in
Matthew's. The thing was done almost before he knew it. He could not
tell why he had acted as he did, and he certainly would not have
believed himself capable of it.

He passed the next few days in a veritable agony of repentance,
overwhelmed by a sense of shame and dishonour that were almost feminine
in their bitterness and intensity. He felt himself lost, unworthy, and
as if he could never again look a pure woman in the eyes unless with an
abominable hypocrisy. He was ashamed even before Geary and young Haight,
and went so far as to send a long letter to his father acknowledging and
deploring what he had done, asking for his forgiveness and reiterating
his resolve to shun such a thing forever after.