"Consciously he had always been on the side of his mother, on the side of purity, refinement, the spirit...And now two years of Majorie...made him consciously dislike cold virtue...even though...he was still ashamed of his dislike...what he regarded as sensual desires...his love for Lucy...He could give her friendship...But love-that was suffocating...He knew that the moment the door had shut...he knew...[he] ought to go back...It was a flight from his conscience and...hastening toward his desire...He hurried on, hating her because he had made her so unhappy..." (Chap. 1 Pages 9-11)
Walter is a journalist and critic currently living in London, and is the son of sensual painter and 'pleasure for the sake of pleasure figure' John Bidlake. Walter is illustrated as a weak man who desperately wants to get away from his partner, Majorie, as he is unhappy being with her because he is guilty about not being able to love her. He also despises Majorie because he is guilty of causing her the pain of being together with man who does not love her.
He is the hapless lover and victim of the sado-masochistic and un-empathetic Lucy Tantamount, because she nearly doesn't give a damn about him, and only has him around as a mere object and toy, to his knowledge, but he can't seem to understand why he is attracted to her so much, as she is not that pretty herself. It is also implied that while he lusts, he hates her for using others and being compassionless.
Walter lives in the realm of the aesthete, he lives for the moment and is not dedicated to a long term-goal or interest, but more than others, Walter is extremely weak and passive, and seeks happiness in stuff that he really has no control over, his body commits the actions even though his mind is in a different focal point; he constantly have to live with the decisions he makes even though he hates making them, and cannot bring himself to carve anything else out of the satisfaction he hopes to gain.
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