n presently. "I
wish she were well out of Oxford. It's a bad town for a girl to
be living in, especially as a barmaid in a place which we haunt.
I don't know that she will take much harm now; but it's a very
trying thing for a girl of that sort to be thrown every day
amongst a dozen young men above her in rank, and not one in ten
of whom has any manliness about him."

"How do you mean--no manliness?"

"I mean that a girl in her position isn't safe with us. If we had
any manliness in us she would be--"

"You can't expect all men to be blocks of ice, or milksops," said
Tom, who was getting nettled.

"Don't think that I meant you," said Hardy; "indeed I didn't. But
surely, think a moment; is it a proof of manliness that the pure
and weak should fear you and shrink from you? Which is the
true--aye, and the brave--man, he who trembles before a woman or
he before whom a woman trembles?"

"Neither," said Tom; "but I see what you mean, and when you put
it that way it's clear enough."

"But you're wrong in saying 'neither' if you do see what I mean."
Tom was silent. "Can there be any true manliness without purity?"
went on Hardy. Tom drew a deep breath but said nothing. "And
where then can you point to a place where there is so little
manliness as here? It makes my blood boil to see what one must
see every day. There are a set of men up here, and have been ever
since I can remember the place, not one of whom can look at a
modest woman without making her shudder."

"There must always be some blackguards," said Tom.

"Yes; but unluckily the blackguards set the fashion, and give the
tone to public opinion. I'm sure both of us have seen enough to
know perfectly well that up here, amongst us undergraduates, men
who are deliberately and avowedly profligates, are rather admired
and courted,--are said to know the world, and all that,--while a
man who tries to lead a pure life, and makes no secret of it, is
openly sneered at by them, looked down on more or less by the
great mass of men, and, to use the word you used just now,
thought a milksop by almost all."

"I don't think it so bad as that," said Tom. "There are many men
who would respect him, though they might not be able to follow
him."

"Of course, I never meant that there are not many such, but they
don't set the fashion. I am sure I'm right. Let us try it by the
best test. Haven't you and I in our secret hearts this cursed
feeling, that the sort of man we are talk