It was what other men did with impunity.
In company with Geary and young Haight he had come to frequent a certain one of the fast cafes of the city.

Here he met and became acquainted with a girl called Flossie.

It was the opportunity for which he was waiting, and he seized it at once.
This time there was no recoil of conscience, no shame, no remorse; he even felt a better estimation of himself, that self-respect that comes with wider experiences and with larger views of life.

He told himself that all men should at one time see certain phases of the world; it rounded out one's life.

After all, one had to be a man of the world.
Those men only were perverted who allowed themselves to be corrupted by such vice.
Thus it was that Vandover, by degrees, drifted into the life of a certain class of the young men of the city.