It became more and more evident that the cheating incident--or, rather, the accusation, as he persisted in calling it--was merely the last straw in his fall, and that the whole thing had been the result of a crumbly unprincipled kind of will underneath, rather than of any particular strain of vice.

He appeared, even now, to think that his traveling about with a woman who was not his wife was a sort of remnant of fallen splendor--as a man might keep a couple of silver spoons out of the ruin of his house.
"I recommend you to pick up with one," remarked the Major.

"There are plenty to be had, if you go about it the right way." "Thanks," said Frank, "but it's not my line." (IV) The morning, too, was a little trying.
Frank had passed a tolerable night.

The Major had retired upstairs about ten o'clock, taking his socks with him, presumably to sleep in them, and Frank had heard him creaking about upstairs for a minute or two; there had followed two clumps as the boots were thrown off; a board suddenly spoke loudly; there was a little talking--obviously the Major had awakened Gertie in order to make a remark or two--and then silence.
Frank had not slept for half an hour; he was thinking, with some depression, of the dreary affair into which he had been initiated, of the Major, and of Gertie, for whom he was beginning to be sorry.

He did not suppose that the man actually bullied her; probably he had done this sufficiently for the present--she was certainly very quiet and subdued--or perhaps she really admired him, and thought it rather magnificent to travel about with an ex-officer.