Chapter II: Part I: I (2)

“I’m not sure if you ought. You see, I’m almost an old fossil, and it’s quite natural that I should use your Christian name.”

“But I won’ t let you assume any airs of superiority over me, I want you to be absolutely a companion, and I don’t care twopence if you’re older than I am. Besides, I shall always think of you as Bella.”

She smiled again, looking at him with tender eyes.

“Well, I suppose you must do as you like,” she answered.

“Of course.”

Then quickly he took both her hands, and, before she realized what he was about, kissed them.

“Don’t be foolish,’ cried Bella, withdrawing them hurriedly, and she reddened to her very hair.

When he saw her discomfort, boylike, he burst into a shout of laughter.

“Oh, I’ve made you blush.”

His blue eyes sparkled, and he was delighted with his little wickedness. He did not know that afterwards, in her room, Bella, the kisses still burning on her hands, wept bitterly as though her heart would break.

IV

When Miss Ley entered her drawing-room she found the punctual Dean already dressed for dinner, very distinguished in silk stockings and buckled shoes, and presently Bella appeared, attired with sombre magnificence in black satin.

“I went to Holywell Street this morning to look round the book-shops,” said the Dean, “but Holywell Street is pulled down. London isn’t what it was, Polly. Each time I come I find old buildings gone and old friends scattered.”

With melancholy he thought of the pleasant hours he had spent fingering second-hand books, and the scent of musty volumes rose to his nostrils. The new shops to which the Jewish vendors had removed no longer had the old dusty nonchalance, the shelves were too spick and span, the idle lounger apparently less welcome.

Mrs. Barlow-Bassett and her son were announced. She was a tall woman of handsome presence, with fine eyes and a confident step; her gray hair, abundant and curling, recalled in its elaborate arrangement the fashion of the eighteenth century, and her manner of dress, suggested by the modes of that time, gave her somewhat the look of a sitter for Sir Joshua Reynolds. Her movements were characterized by a kind of obstinate decision, and she bore herself with the fine uprightness of a woman bred when deportment was still a part of maidenly education. She was immensely proud of her son, a tall strapping fellow of two-and-twenty, with black hair no less fine than his mother’s, and with singularly beautiful features. Big-boned but unmuscular, very dark, his large brown eyes, straight nose and olive skin, his full sensual mouth, made him a person of striking appearance; and of this he was by no means unconscious. He was a good-humoured, lazy creature, languid as an Oriental houri, unscrupulous, untruthful, whom his mother by an exacting adoration had forced into insincerity. Left a widow of means, Mrs. Barlow-Bassett had devoted her life to the upbringing of this only son, and was pleased to think that hitherto she had kept him successfully from all knowledge of evil. She meant him to and in her a friend and confidant as well as a mother, and boasted that from her he had never kept a single action nor a single thought.

“I want to talk to Mr. Kent this evening, Mary,” she said. “He’s a barrister, isn’t he? And we’ve just made up our minds that Reggie had better go to the Bar.”

Reggie, who, notwithstanding the attraction of a splendid uniform, had no inclination for the restraints of a military career, and disdained the commercial walk in which his father had earned a handsome fortune, was quite content to put up with the more gentlemanly side of the law. He knew vaguely that a vast number of dinners must be eaten, a prospect to which he looked forward with equanimity; and afterwards saw himself, becomingly attired in wig and gown, haranguing juries to the admiration of the world in general.

“You’re going to sit next to Basil,” answered Miss Ley; “Frank Hurrell is to take you down.”

“I’m sure Reggie will do well at the Bar, and I can keep him with me in London. You know, he’s never given me a moment’s anxiety, and sometimes I do feel proud that I’ve kept him so good and pure. But the world is full of temptations, and he’s so extraordinarily good-looking.”

“He is very handsome,” returned Miss Ley, pursing her lips.

She thought her knowledge of character must be singularly at fault if Reggie was the virtuous creature his mother imagined. The sensuality of his face suggested no great distaste for the sins of the flesh, and the slyness of his dark eyes no excessive innocence.

Basil Kent and Dr. Hurrell, meeting on the doorstep, came in together. It was Frank Hurrell whom Miss Ley, somewhat exacting in these matters, had described as the most amusing person she knew. His breadth of shoulder and solid build were too great for his height, and he had reason to envy Reggie Bassett’s length of leg; nor was his face handsome, for his brows were too heavy and his jaw too square, but the eyes were expressive, mocking sometimes or hard, at others very soft, and there was a persuasiveness in his deep resonant voice of which he well knew the power. A small black moustache concealed the play of a well-shaped mouth and the regularity of his excellent teeth. He impressed you as a strong man, of no very easy temper, who held himself in admirable control. Silent with strangers, he disconcerted them by an unwilling frigidity of manner, and though his friends, knowing that at all times he could be depended upon, were eager in his praise, acquaintance often accused him of superciliousness. To be popular with all and sundry he took no sufficient pains to conceal his impatience of stupidity, and though Miss Ley thought his conversation interesting, others to whom for some reason he was not attracted found him absent and taciturn.

An extremely reserved man, few knew that Frank Hurrell’s deliberate placidity of expression masked a very emotional temperament. In this he recognised a weakness and had schooled his face carefully to betray no feeling; but the feeling all the same was there, turbulent and overwhelming, and he profoundly mistrusted his judgment which could be drawn so easily from the narrow path of reason. He kept over himself unceasing watch, as though a dangerous prisoner were in his heart ever on the alert to break his chains. He felt himself the slave of a vivid imagination, and realized that it stood against the enjoyment of life which his philosophy told him was the only end of existence. Yet his passions were of the mind rather than of the body, and his spirit urged his flesh constantly to courses wherein it found nothing but disillusion. His chief endeavour was the search for truth, and somewhat to Miss Ley’s scorn, (for she rested easily in a condition of satisfied doubt, her attitude towards life indicated by a slight shrug of the shoulders,) he strove after certainty with an eagerness which other men reserve for love or fame or opulence. But all his studies were directed at the last to another end; convinced that the present life was final, he sought to make the completest use of its every moment; and yet it seemed preposterous that so much effort, such vast time and strange concurrence of events, the world and man, should tend towards nothing. He could not but think that somewhere a meaning must be discernible, and to find this examined science and philosophy with an anxious passion that to his colleagues at St. Luke’s, worthy craftsmen who saw no further than the slide on their microscope’s, would have seemed extraordinary and almost insane.

But it would have required an imaginative person to discover in Dr. Hurrell at that moment trace of a conflict as vehement as any passionate disturbance of more practical people. He was in high good-humour, and while they waited for the remaining guests talked to Miss Ley.

“Isn’t it charming of me to come?” he asked.

“Not at all,” she replied; “it’s very much nicer for a greedy person like you to eat my excellent dinner than to nibble an ill-cooked chop in your own rooms.”

“How ungrateful! At all events, as a stopgap I have no duties to my neighbour, and may devote myself entirely to the pleasures of the table.”

“Like a friend of mine—people weren’t so polite forty years ago, and much more amusing—who, when his neighbour made some very foolish remark, shouted at her: ‘Go on with your soup, madam!’”

“Tell me who else is coming,” said Frank.

“Mrs. Castillyon, but she’ll be monstrously late. She thinks it fashionable, and the _County_ in London has to take so many precautions not to seem provincial. Mrs. Murray is coming.”

“D’you still want me to marry her?”

“No,” replied Miss Ley, laughing, “I’ve given you up. Though it wasn’t nice of you to abuse me like a pickpocket because I offered you a handsome widow with five thousand a year.”

“Think of the insufferable bore of marriage, and in any case Heaven save me from an intellectual wife. If I marry at all, I’ll marry my cook.”

“I wish you wouldn’t make my jokes, Frank. . . . But as a matter of fact, unless I’m vastly mistaken, Mrs. Murray has made up her mind to marry our friend Basil.”

“Oh!” said Frank.

Miss Ley noticed a shadow cross his eyes, and examined his expression sharply.

“Don’t you think it would be a very suitable thing if she did?”

“I have no views on the subject,” returned Frank.

“I wonder what you mean by that. Basil is poor and handsome and clever, and Mrs. Murray has always had an inclination for literary men. That’s the worst of marrying a cavalryman—it leads you to attach so much importance to brains.”

“Was Captain Murray an absolute fool?”

’My dear Frank, you don’t ask if a guardsman has intelligence, but whether he can play polo. Captain Murray did two wise things in his life: he made a will leaving his wife a large fortune, and then promptly departed to a place where stupidity is apparently no disadvantage.”

Miss Ley, for Bella’s peculiar edification, had invited also the most fashionable cleric in London, the Rev, Collinson Farley, Vicar of All Souls, Grosvenor Square, and it amused her to see the look of Frank Hurrell, who detested him, when this gentleman was announced. Mr. Farley was a man of middle size, with iron-gray hair carefully brushed, and a rather fine head; his well-manicured hands were soft and handsome, adorned with expensive rings. He was an amateur of good society, and could afford, such were his fascinations, to be very careful in his choice of friends; a coronet no longer dazzled a man who realized how hollow was earthly rank beside earthly riches. Poverty he could excuse only in a duchess, for there is in the strawberry leaves, even when, faded and sere, they wreathe the wrinkled brow of a dowager, something which inspires respect in the most flippant. His suave manner and intelligent conversation had gained him powerful friends when he was but a country rector, and through their influence the opportunity came at last to move to a sphere where his social talents met their due appreciation. Ecclesiastical dignity, like the sins of the fathers, may descend to the third and fourth generation, and obviously a man whose grandfather was a bishop could not lack decorum; something was surely due to a courteous person who had been actually born in an episcopal palace.

Mrs. Castillyon, as her hostess predicted last to arrive, at length appeared.

“I hope I’m not late, Miss Ley,” she said, putting out both hands with a pretty little gesture of appeal.

“Not very,” replied her hostess. “Knowing that you make a point of being unpunctual, I took care to ask you for half an hour earlier than anyone else.”

In solemn procession the company marched down to the dining-room, and Mr. Farley surveyed the table with satisfaction.

“I always think a well-dressed table one of the most truly artistic sights of our modern civilization,” he remarked to his neighbour.

And his eyes wandered round the dining-room, in the furniture of which he observed a comforting but discreet opulence. Mr. Farley had known the house in Miss Dwarris’ lifetime, and noticed now that a portrait of her no longer hung in its accustomed place.

“I see you have removed that excellent picture of the former occupant of this house, Miss Ley,” he said, with a graceful wave of his white and jewelled hand.

“I couldn’t bear that she should watch me eat three meals a day,” replied his hostess. “I have a vivid recollection of her dinners: she fed me on husks and acorns, like the prodigal son, and regaled me with accounts of the torment that awaited me in an after-life.”

The Dean smiled gravely. He looked upon Miss Ley with a kind of affectionate disapproval; and though often he rebuked her for the books she read or for the flippancy of her conversation, took always in good part the irony with which she met his little sermons.

“You’re very uncharitable, Polly,” he said. “Of course Eliza was a difficult person to live with, but she exacted no more from others than she exacted from herself. I always admired her strong sense of duty; it was very striking at the present time when everyone lives entirely for pleasure.”

“We may not be so virtuous as our fathers, Algernon,” answered Miss Ley, “but we’re very much easier to live with. After all, forty years ago people were positively insufferable: they spoke their minds, which is a detestable habit; their temper was abominable, and they drank more than was good for them. I always think my father was typical of his period. When he flew into a passion he called it righteous anger, and when I did anything to which he objected he suffered from—virtuous indignation. D’you know that till I was fifteen I was never allowed to taste butter, which was thought bad both for my figure and my soul? I was brought up exclusively on dripping and Jeremy Taylor. The world was a hazardous path beset with gins and snares; and at every turn and corner were immature volcanoes from which arose sulphurous fumes of hell-fire.”

“It was an age of tyranny and vapours,” said Frank. “of old gentlemen who were overbearing and young ladies who swooned.”

“I’m sure people aren’t so good as they used to be,” said Mrs. Bassett, glancing at her son, who was much engrossed in a conversation with Mrs. Castillyon.

“They never were,” answered Miss Ley.

“The perverseness of men would have made an infidel of me,” added the Dean, in his sweet grave voice, “but for the counteracting impression of Divine providence in the works of Nature.”

Meanwhile Reggie Bassett enjoyed his dinner far more than he expected. He found himself next to Mrs. Castillyon, and on sitting down proceeded to examine her with some effrontery. A rapid glance had told her that the boy was handsome, and when she saw what he was about, to give him opportunity at his leisure to observe her various graces, she began to talk volubly with her other neighbour. But presently she turned to Reggie.

“Well, is it satisfactory?” she asked.

“What?”

“Your inspection.”

She smiled brightly, flashing a quick, provoking look into his fine dark eyes.

“Quite,” he answered, with a smile, not in the least disconcerted. “My mother is already thinking that Miss Ley oughtn’t to have let me sit by you.”

Mrs. Castillyon was a vivacious creature, small and dainty like a shepherdess in Dresden china, excitable and restless, who spoke with a loud, shrill voice; and with a quick, nervous gesture, constantly threw herself back in her chair to laugh boisterously at what Reggie said. And finding he could venture very far indeed without fear of offence, the model youth told her little scabrous stories in a low, suave voice, staring meanwhile into her eyes with the shameless audacity of a man conscious of his power. It is the fascination-look of the lady-killer, and its very impudence appears to be half its charm; the rake at heart feels that here modest pretences are useless, and with unhidden joy descends from the pedestal upon which the folly of man has insisted on placing her. Mrs. Castillyon’s face was thin and small, overpowdered, with rather high cheek-bones, her hair, intricately dressed, had an unnatural fairness; but this set Reggie peculiarly at his ease, for he had enough experience of the sex to opine that women who used such artifices were always easier to get on with than the others. He thought his neighbour quite pretty, notwithstanding her five-and-thirty years; and the somewhat faded look of a thin blonde was counterbalanced by the magnificence of her jewels and the splendour of her gown: this was cut so low that Bella from the other side of the table naïvely wondered how on earth it was kept on at all.

When the men were left to smoke, Reggie, helping himself to a third glass of port, drew his chair to Hurrell’s.

“I say, Frank,” he exclaimed, “that was a nice little woman next to me, wasn’t it?”

“Had you never met Mrs. Castillyon before?”

“Never! Regular ripper, ain’t she? By Jove! I thought this dinner would be simply deadly—politics and religion, and all that rot. The mater always makes me come, because she says there’s intellectual conversation. My God!”

Frank laughed at the idea of Mrs. Barlow-Basset combining instruction with amusement for her son at Miss Ley’s dinner-table.

“But Mrs. Castillyon’s a bit of all right, I can tell you. Little baggage! And she don’t mind what you say to her. . . . Why, she isn’t like a lady at all.”

“Is that a great recommendation?”

“Well, ladies ain’t amusing, are they?” You talk to ’em of the Academy and all that sort of rot, and you’ve got to take care you don’t swear. Ladies may be all very well to marry, but upon my soul, for giving you a good time I prefer them a bit lower in the scale.”

A little later, on the stairs, when they were going up to the drawing-room, Reggie slipped his arm through Frank’s.

“I say, old man, don’t give me away if my mater thanks you for asking me to dinner on Saturday.”

“But I haven’t. Neither have I the least desire that you should dine with me on that day.”

“Good Lord! d’you think I want to come—and talk about bugs and beetles all the evening? Not much! I’m going to dine with a little girl I know—typewriter, my boy, and a real love touch. Stunning little thing, I can tell you.”

“But I don’t see why, because you wish to entertain a young person connected with typewriting, I should imperil my immortal soul.”

Reggie laughed.

“Don’t be an ass, Frank; you might help me. You don’t know how utterly rotten it is to have a mother like mine who wants to keep me tied to her apron-strings. She makes me tell her everything I do, and of course I have to fake up some yarn. The only thing in it is that she’ll swallow any damned lie I tell her.”

“You can tell her lies till you’re blue in the face,” said Frank, “but I don’t see why the devil I should.”

“Don’t be a beast, Frank. You might help me just this once. It won’t hurt you to say I’m grubbing with you. The other night, by Jove! I nearly gave the show away. You know she always waits up for me. I told her I should be working late with my crammer, and went to the Empire. Well, I met a lot of chaps there and got a bit squiffy. There would have been a shindy if she’d noticed it, but I managed to pull myself together a bit, and said I’d got the very deuce of a headache. And next day I heard her tell someone that I was next door to a teetotaler.”

They reached the drawing-room and Frank found himself close to Mrs. Bassett.

“Oh, Dr. Hurrell,” she said, “I want to thank you so much for asking Reggie to dinner on Saturday. He’s been working so hard that I think a little relaxation will do him good. And his tutor keeps him sometimes till past eleven—it can’t be good for him, can it? The night before last he was so tired when he came in that he could scarcely get up the stairs.”

“I’m delighted that Reggie should care to come and dine with me sometimes,” answered Frank, somewhat grimly.

“I’m always glad to think he’s with you. It’s so important that a young man should have really trustworthy friends, and I feel sure your influence is good for him.”

Reggie, listening to this, gave Frank a very slow and significant wink, then went off with a light heart to resume his conversation with Mrs. Castillyon.

V

Presently all Miss Ley’s guests, except Frank Hurrell, bade her good-night, and he showed no intention of following their example.

“You don’t want to go to bed yet, do you?” she asked the Dean. “Let us go into the library.”

Here Frank took from a drawer his pipe, and helping himself from a tobacco-jar placed in readiness, sat down. Miss Ley, noticing Bella’s slight look of surprise, explained.

“Frank keeps a pipe here and makes me buy his favourite tobacco. It’s one of the advantages of old age that you can sit into the small hours of the morning and talk with young men.”

But when he too was gone, Miss Ley, an old-fashioned hostess solicitous for her guests’ comfort, accompanied Bella to her room.

“I hope you enjoyed my little party,” she said.

“Very much,” replied Bella. “But why do you ask Mrs. Castillyon? She’s dreadfully common, isn’t she?”

“My dear,” answered Miss Ley ironically, “her husband is a most important person—in Dorsetshire, and her own family has a whole page in the _Gentleman’s Bible_ or the _Landed Gentry_.”

“I shouldn’t have thought she was county,” said Bella seriously; “she seemed to me very vulgar.”

“She is very vulgar,” answered Miss Ley, “but it’s the sort of vulgarity which is a mark of the highest breeding. To talk too loud and to laugh like a bus-driver, to use the commonest slang and to dress outrageously, are all signs of the _grande dame_. Often in Bond Street I see women with painted cheeks and dyed hair dressed in a manner which even a courtesan would think startling, and I recognise the leaders of London fashion. . . . Good-night. Don’t expect to see me at breakfast; that is a meal which only the angels of heaven should eat in company.”

Miss Langton sat down as though she had no wish to go to bed.

“Don’t go just yet. I want to know all about Mr. Kent.” Miss Ley, following her friend’s example, made herself comfortable in an armchair. Once Miss Dwarris asserted that a virtuous person as a matter of discipline should do every day two things which he disliked, whereupon Miss Ley answered flippantly that then she must be on the direct road to everlasting happiness, for within the twenty-four hours she invariably performed a brace of actions which she thoroughly detested: she got up, and she went to bed. Now, therefore, in no hurry to go to her own room, she proceeded to tell Miss Langton what she knew of Basil Kent. In truth it was not strange that he had attracted Bella’s attention, for his appearance was unusual; he managed to wear the conventional evening dress of an Englishman with becoming grace, but one felt, such was his romantic air, he should by rights have borne the armour of a Florentine knight. His limbs were slender and well made, his hands white and comely, and his brown curly hair, worn somewhat long, set off the fine colour of his face; the dark eyes, thin cheeks, and full sensual mouth were set into a passionate wistfulness of expression which recalled again those faces in early Italian pictures wherein the spirit and the flesh seem ever to fight a restless battle—to them the earth is always beautiful, rich with love and warfare, with poetry and deep blue skies, but yet everywhere is disillusion also, and the dark silence of the cloister, even amid the painted turbulence of court or camp, whispers its irresistible appeal. None looking at Basil Kent could imagine that any great ease of life awaited him; through his brown eyes appeared a soul at the same time sensual and ascetic, impulsive and chivalrous, yet so sensitive that the storms and buffets of the world, to which inevitably he exposed himself, must assault him with double violence.

“Well, he’s the son of Lady Vizard,” said Miss Ley.

’What!” cried Bella, “you don’t mean the woman about whom there was that dreadful case five years ago?”

“Yes. He was then at Oxford, where Frank and he were bosom friends. It was through Frank that I first knew him. His father, a cousin of the present Kent of Ouseley, died when he was a child, and Basil was brought up by his grandmother, for his mother married Lord Vizard very shortly after her husband’s death. Even now she’s a beautiful woman. In those days she was perfectly gorgeous; her photograph was in all the shop-windows—her prime coincided with the fashion for young men to buy the portraits of celebrated beauties they did not know, and the chastest women thought it no shame for their pictures to be exposed in every stationer’s shop or to decorate the chimneypiece of a platonic counter-jumper. At that time Lady Vizard’s doings were minutely chronicled in the papers that concern themselves with such things, and her parties were thronged with all the fashion of London. She was to be seen at every race-meeting surrounded by admirers; of course she had a box at the opera, and at Homburg attracted the most august attention.”

“Did Mr. Kent ever see her?” asked Bella.

“He used to spend part of his holidays with her, and she dazzled him as she dazzled everyone else, Frank told me that Basil simply worshipped his mother; he has always had a passion for beauty, and was immensely proud of her magnificent appearance, I used at one time occasionally to meet her at parties, and she struck me as one of the most splendid, majestic women I ever saw; one felt that something like that most have looked Madame de Montespan.”

“Was she fond of her son?”

“In her way. Naturally she didn’t want him bothering around her. She kept her youth marvellously. Lord Vizard was younger than herself, and she didn’t much care to produce a boy who was very nearly grown up. So she was quite pleased that old Mrs. Kent, whom she detested, should look after him. But when he came to stay she filled his pockets with money, took him to the play every night and thoroughly amused him. I dare say she too was pleased with his good looks, for at sixteen he must have been more beautiful than a Greek ephebe. But if ever he showed any signs of inconvenient attachment, I doubt whether Lady Vizard encouraged him. From Harrow he went to Oxford, and Frank, who is a very acute observer, told me that then Basil was a peculiarly innocent boy, absurdly open and frank, who never kept a secret from anybody, and said without thinking, ingenuously, everything that came into his head. Of course scandal for a good many years had been busy with Lady Vizard; her extravagance was notorious, and Vizard was known to be neither rich nor generous; but his wife did everything that cost a great deal of money, and her emeralds were obviously worth a fortune. Even Basil cannot have helped seeing how many masculine friends she had, though perhaps when he was spending with her the occasional week to which he looked forward so intensely, she took pains that nothing too flaunting should come to his eyes; and when strange gentlemen slipped sovereigns into his hand he pocketed them under the impression that his own merit had earned them. And now I must go to bed.”

Miss Ley, with a tantalizing smile, rose from her chair, but Bella stopped her.

“Don’t be cattish, Mary. You know I want to hear the rest of the story.”

“Are you aware that it’s past one o’clock?”

“I don’t care, you must finish it now.”

Miss Ley, having created this small diversion, sat down again, proceeding, not at all against her will, with the recital.

“Basil’s only vanity was his mother, and he talked of her incessantly, taking a manifest pride in her social success and the admiration which everywhere she excited; he would have staked his life on her immaculate character, and when the crash came he was simply overwhelmed. You remember the case; it was one of those in which a prudish English public takes keen delight. Every placard announced in huge letters that for the especial delectation of the middle classes a divorce in high life was being fought at the Law Courts in which there were no less than four co-respondents. It appeared that Lord Vizard, chiefly because he was frightened of his wife’s extravagance, had at last filed a petition in which he named Lord Ernest Torrens, Colonel Roome, Mr. Norman Wynne and somebody else. The pair evidently had not for some time enjoyed great connubial felicity, for Lady Vizard brought a counter-petition, accusing her husband of philandering with her own maid and with a certain Mrs. Platter, a lady who inhabited a flat in Shaftesbury Avenue. The case was fought on both sides with the greatest acrimony, and a crowd of witnesses testified to behaviour which one at least hopes is unusual in the houses of the great. But of course you read the details in the _Church Times_, Bella.”

“I remember it was reported in the _Standard_,” answered Miss Langton, “but I read nothing.”

“Virtuous creature!” said Miss Ley, with a thin smile. ’The average Englishman would never keep his respect for titled persons if the reports of proceedings in the Divorce Court did not periodically give him some insight into their private life. . . . Anyhow, the things of which Lord and Lady Vizard accused one another were enough to make the hair of a suburban paterfamilias stand right on end.”

Miss Ley paused for a moment, and then with calm deliberation, as though she had given this matter the attention of a lifetime and carefully weighed all sorts, proceeded.

“A divorce, you know, can be managed in two ways—respectably, when both parties are indifferent or afraid and no more is said than is essential for the non-intervention at a subsequent stage of that absurd gentleman, the King’s Proctor; and vindictively, when in their eagerness to bespatter the person whom at some previous period they solemnly vowed to love to the end of their days, they care not how much mud is thrown at themselves. Lady Vizard made a practice of detesting her husbands, and she loathed the second far more because he had not the grace to die like the first, four years after the marriage. His penuriousness, ill-temper, insobriety were dragged into the light of day; and he brought servants to testify to his wife’s most private habits, produced letters which he had intercepted, and subpœnaed tradesmen to swear by whom accounts for jewellery and clothes had been settled. Lord Vizard engaged the cleverest criminal lawyer of the time, and for two days his wife with unparalleled wit, courage, and resource bore a cross-examination which would have ruined a weaker woman. It was partly on this account, because they admired the good fight she made, partly because it seemed impossible that such an imposing creature should have done the quite odious things of which the husband accused her, but still more because they thought there was precious little to choose between kettle and pot, that the jury found the charges not proven; and Lady Vizard in a manner remained mistress of the position. The rest you can guess for yourself.”

“No, I can’t, Mary. Go on.”

“No word had reached Basil that proceedings were to be taken, and his first knowledge of the affair came with the morning paper and his eggs and bacon. He could scarcely believe his eyes, and he read the report with incredulity changing quickly to dismay and horror. The news dazed and crushed him. A hundred trifles he had seen but never noticed came to his mind, and he knew that his mother was no better than the painted harlot who sells her body for a five-pound note.”

“But how d’you know all this, Mary?” asked Bella doubtfully. “You’re not inventing it, are you?”

“I read the papers,” answered Miss Ley, with some asperity. “Frank told me a good deal, and my common-sense the rest. I flatter myself I have a certain knowledge of human nature, and if Basil didn’t feel what I tell you, he should have. But I shall never finish my story if you keep on interrupting me.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Bella humbly. “Pray go on.”

“Frank, you know, is somewhat older than Basil, and at that time was in Oxford, taking his M.B. He found the poor boy overcome with shame, anxious like a stricken beast to hide himself from all strange eyes. But Frank is made of sterner stuff; he persuaded him to go about as though nothing had happened, and even to dine in hall as usual. What for the one would not have been so very difficult to the other was unendurable. Basil imagined that everyone stared at him as though he were a thing unclean; he had bragged a good deal of his wonderful parent, and he thought now that all his words must be scornfully repeated. The papers continued their edifying story; witnesses told shameful things; and Basil, haggard and sleepless, could not conceal his torment. Frank had set him an ordeal beyond his strength, and without a word to anyone he fled to London. After the trial he went to see Lady Vizard, but what happened then I do not know. He never returned to Oxford. At that time they were recruiting for the Imperial Yeomanry, and Basil, passing by chance through St. James’s Park, saw the men drilling. He wished to get out of England, where everyone seemed to point at him with scorn, and here was an opportunity; he enlisted, and a month later sailed for South Africa.”

“As a trooper?” asked Miss Langton.

“Yes. I believe he distinguished himself, for they offered him a commission, but this he refused and was given instead the Medal for Distinguished Conduct in the Field. He remained there three years, and did not return to England till the last batch of Yeomanry was brought home. Then he settled down to read for the Bar, and was called last year.”

Does he ever see his mother, d’you know?”

I believe never. He has a small income, about three hundred a year, and on that in a modest way is able to live. I think he has only gone to the Bar as a sort of form, for he means to write. You probably never saw the little book of South African sketches which he brought out last year—impressions of scenery and studies of character. It had no particular success, but to my mind showed a good deal of promise; I remember an account of some battle about which there was an uncommon swing and dash. He’s working at a novel now, and I dare say some day will write a very clever book.”

“D’you think he’ll ever be famous?”

Miss Ley shrugged her shoulders.

“You know, to achieve great success in literature you must have a certain coarseness in your composition, and that I don’t think Basil has. Really to move and influence men you must have complete understanding, and you can only get that if you have in you something of the common clay of humanity. . . . But now I really must go to bed. You’re such a chatterbox, Bella, I believe you would keep me up all night.”

This was somewhat hard on Miss Langton, who for an hour had barely opened her mouth.

VI

But while the two ladies thus discussed him, Basil Kent stood on the bridge over the ornamental water in St. James’s Park, and looked thoughtfully at that scene than which perhaps there is none more beautiful in the most beautiful of all cities, London: the still water, silvered by the moon, the fine massing of the trees, and the Foreign Office, pompous and sedate, formed a composition as perfect and no less formally elaborate than any painted by Claude Lorrain. The night was warm and balmy, the sky clear; and the quiet was so delightful, notwithstanding the busy hum of Piccadilly, where, at that hour, all was gaiety and frolic, that it reminded Basil of some restful, old-fashioned town in France. His heart beat with a strange elation, for he knew at last, without possibility of doubt, that Mrs. Murray loved him. Before, though he could not be unaware that she saw him with pleasure and listened to his conversation with interest, he had not the audacity to suppose a warmer feeling; but when they met that evening he surprised a blush while she gave her hand, and this had sent the blood running to his own cheeks. He took her down to dinner, and the touch of her fingers on his arm burnt him like fire. She spoke but little, yet listened to his words with a peculiar intensity as though she sought in them some hidden meaning, and when his eyes met hers seemed to shrink back almost in fear. But at the same time her look had a strange, expectant eagerness, as though she had heard the promise of some excellent thing, and awaited it vehemently, yet half afraid.

Basil recalled Mrs. Murray’s entrance into the drawing-room, and his admiration for the grace of her bearing and the fine sweep of her long dress. She was a tall woman, as tall as himself, with a certain boyishness of figure that lent itself to a sinuous distinction of line; her hair was neither dark nor fair, the eyes gray and tender, but her smile was very noticeable for a peculiar sweetness that marked an attractive nature. And if there was no precise beauty in her face, its winsome expression, the pallor of her skin, gave it a fascinating grave sadness reminiscent of the women of Sandro Botticelli: there was that same inscrutable look of melancholy eyes which suggested a passionate torment repressed and hidden, and she had that very grace of gesture which one is certain was theirs. But to Basil Mrs. Murray’s greatest charm was the protecting fondness, as though she were ready to shield him from all the world’s trouble, which he felt in her; it made him at once grateful, proud, and humble. He longed to take in his own those caressing hands and to kiss her lips; he felt already round his neck the long white arms as she drew him to her heart with an affection half maternal.

Mrs. Murray had never looked handsomer than that night when she stood in the hall, holding herself very erect, and spoke with Basil while waiting for her carriage. Her cloak was so beautiful that the young man remarked on it, and she, flushing slightly with pleasure because he noticed, looked down at the heavy brocade as splendid as some material of the eighteenth century.

“I bought the stuff in Venice,” she said, “but I feel almost unworthy to wear it. I couldn’t resist it because it’s exactly like a gown worn by Catherine Cornaro in a picture in one of the galleries.”

“Only you could wear it,” answered Basil, with flashing eyes. “It would overwhelm anyone else.”

She smiled and blushed, and bade him good-night.

Basil Kent was much changed from the light-hearted youth whom Frank had known at Oxford, for at that time he gave himself carelessly, like a leaf to the wind, to every emotion; and a quick depression at the failure of something in which he was interested would be soon followed by a boisterous joy. Life seemed very good then, and without after-thought he could rejoice in its various colour, in its ceaseless changing beauty; it was already his ambition to write books, and with the fertile, rather thin invention of youth, he scribbled incessantly. But when he learned with shame and with dismay that the world was sordid and vile, for his very mother was unchaste, he felt he could never hold up his head again. Yet, after the first nausea of disgust, Basil rebelled against his feeling; he loved that wretched woman better than anyone, and now his place was surely by her side. It was not for him to judge nor to condemn, but rather in her shameful humiliation to succour and protect. Could he not show his mother that there were finer things in life than admiration and amusement, jewels and fine clothes? He made up his mind to go to her and take her away to the Continent, where they could hide themselves; and perhaps this might be a means to draw closer together his mother and himself, for, notwithstanding his blind admiration, Basil had suffered a good deal because he could never reach her very heart.

Lady Vizard still inhabited her husband’s house in Charles Street, and it was thither on the day after the case had been dismissed that Basil hurried. He expected to find her cowering in her room, afraid of the light of day, haggard and weeping; and his tender heart, filled only with pity, bled at the thought of her distress. He would go to her and kiss her, and say: “Here am I, mother. Let us go away together where we can start a new life. The world is wide and there is room even for us. I love you more than ever I did, and I will try to be a good and faithful son to you.”

He rang the bell, and the door was opened by the butler he had known for years.

“Can I see her ladyship at once, Miller?” he said.

“Yes, sir. Her ladyship is still at luncheon. Will you go into the dining-room.”

Basil stepped forward, but caught sight of several hats on the hall-table.

“Is anyone here?” he asked with surprise.

But before the butler could answer there was a shout of laughter from the adjoining room. Basil started as though he had been struck.

“Is her ladyship giving a party?”

“Yes, sir.”

Basil stared at the butler with dismay, unable to understand; he wished to question him, but was ashamed. It seemed too monstrous to be true. The very presence of that servant seemed an outrage, for he too had given evidence at the hateful trial. How could his mother bear the sight of that unctuous, servile visage? Miller, seeing the horror in the young man’s eyes and the pallor of his cheek, looked away with a vague discomfort.

“Will you tell her ladyship that I am here, and should like to speak to her? I’ll go into the morning-room. I suppose no one will come there?”

Basil waited for a quarter of an hour before he heard the dining-room door open, and several people, talking loudly and laughing, walk upstairs. Then his mother’s voice rang out, clear and confident as ever it had been:

“You must all make yourselves comfy, I’ve got to see somebody, and I forbid anyone to go till I come back.”

In a moment Lady Vizard appeared, a smile still on her lips, and the suspicion which Basil during that interval had vainly combated now was changed to naked certainty. Not at all downcast was she nor abashed, but alert as ever, neither less stately nor less proud than when last he saw her. He expected to find his mother in sackcloth and ashes, but behold! she wore a gown by Paquin, the flaunting audacity of which only she could have endured. Very dark, with great flashing eyes and magnificent hair, she had the extravagant flamboyance, the opulence of colour of some royal gipsy. Her height was unusual, her figure splendid, and holding herself admirably, she walked with the majesty of an Eastern queen.

“How nice of you to come, dear boy!” she cried, with a smile showing her beautiful teeth. “I suppose you want to congratulate me on my victory. But why on earth didn’t you come into the dining-room? It was so amusing. And you really should begin to _décrasser_ yourself a little.” She put forward her cheek for Basil to kiss, (this was surely as much as could be expected from a fond though fashionable mother,) but he stepped back. Even his lips grew pale.

“Why didn’t you tell me that this action was coming?” he asked hoarsely.

Lady Vizard gave a little laugh, and from a box on the table took a cigarette.

“_Voyons, mon cher_, I really didn’t think it was your business.”

Lighting a cigarette, she blew into the air two neat smoke-rings, and watched her son with somewhat contemptuous amusement.

“I didn’t expect to find you giving a party to-day.”

“They insisted on coming, and I had to do something to celebrate my triumph.” She laughed lightly. “_Mon Dieu!_ you don’t know what a narrow shave it was. Did you read my cross-examination? It was that which saved me.”

“Saved you from what?” cried Basil sternly, two lines of anger appearing between his brows. “Has it saved you from shameful dishonour? Yes, I read every word. At first I couldn’t believe it was true.”

“_Et après?_” asked Lady Vizard calmly.

“But it was true; there were a dozen people to prove it. Oh God, how could you! I admired you more than anyone else in the world. . . . I thought of your shame, and I came here because I wanted to help you. Don’t you understand the horrible disgrace of it? Oh, mother, mother, you can’t go on like this! Heaven knows I don’t want to blame you. Come away with me, and let us go to Italy and start afresh. . . .”

In the midst of his violent speech he was stopped by the amusement of Lady Vizard’s cold eyes.

“But you talk as if I’d been divorced. How absurd you are! In that case it might have been better to go away for a bit, yet even then I should have faced it. But d’you think I’m going to run away now? _Pas si bête, mon petit!_”

“D’you mean to say you’re going to stay here when everyone knows what you are—when they’ll point at you in the street, and whisper to one another foul stories? And however foul they are, they’ll be true.”

Lady Vizard shrugged her shoulders.

“_Oh, que tu m’assomes!_” she said scornfully, justly proud of her French accent. “You know me very little if you think I’m going to hide myself in some pokey Continental town, or add another tarnished reputation the _declassée_ society of Florence. I mean to stay here. I the opera, at the races, everywhere. I’ve got some good friends who’ll stick to me, and you’ll see in a couple of years I shall pull through. After all, I’ve done little more than plenty of others, and if the _bourgeois_ knows a good deal about me that he didn’t know before—_je m’en bats l’oeil_. I’ve got rid of my pig of a husband, and, for that the whole thing was almost worth it. After all, he knew what was going on; he only rounded on me because he was afraid I spent too much.”

“Aren’t you ashamed?” asked Basil, in a low voice. Aren’t you even sorry?”

“Only fools repent, my dear. I’ve never done anything in my life that I wouldn’t do over again—except marry the two men I did.”

“And you’re just going to remain here as if nothing had happened?”

“Don’t be foolish, Basil,” answered Lady Vizard ill-temperedly. “Of course, I’m not going to stay in this particular house. Ernest Torrens has rather a nice little shanty vacant in Curson Street, and he’s offered to lend it me.”

“But you wouldn’t take it from him, mother. That would be too infamous. For God’s sake, don’t have anything more to do with these men.”

“Really, I can’t throw over an old friend just because my husband makes him a co-respondent.”

Basil went up to her, and placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Mother, you can’t mean all you say. I dare say I’m stupid and awkward—I can’t say what I have in my mind. Heaven knows, I don’t want to preach to you, but isn’t there something in honour and duty and cleanliness and chastity, and all the rest of it? Don’t be so hard on yourself. What does it matter what people say? Leave all this and let us go away.”

“_T’es ridicule, mon cher_, said Lady Vizard, her brow darkening. “If you have nothing more amusing to suggest than that, we might go to the drawing-room. . . . Are you coming?”

She walked towards the door, but Basil intercepted her.

“You shan’t go yet. After all, I’m your son, and you’ve got no right to disgrace yourself.”

“And what will you do, pray?”

Lady Vizard smiled now in a manner that suggested no great placidity of temper.

“I don’t know, but I shall find something. If you haven’t the honour to protect yourself, I must protect you.”

“You impudent boy, how dare you speak to me like that!” cried Lady Vizard, turning on him with flashing eyes. “And what d’you mean by coming here and preaching at me? You miserable prig! I suppose it runs in your family, for your father was a prig before you.”

Basil looked at her, anger taking the place of every other feeling; pity now had vanished, and he sought not to hide his indignation.

“Oh, what a fool I was to believe in you all these years! I would have staked my life that you were chaste and pure. And yet when I read those papers, although the jury doubted, I knew that it was true.”

“Of course it was true!” she cried defiantly. “Every word of it, but they couldn’t prove it.”

“And now I’m ashamed to think I’m your son.”

“You needn’t have anything to do with me, my good boy. You’ve got money of your own. D’you think I want a lubberly, ill-bred oaf hanging about my skirts?”

“I know what you are now, and you horrify me. I hope I shall never see you again. I would sooner my mother were a wretched woman on the streets than you!”

Lady Vizard rang the bell.

“Miller,” she said when the butler appeared, as though she had forgotten Basil’s presence, “I shall want the carriage at four.”

“Very well, my lady.”

“You know I’m dining out to-night, don’t you?”

“Yes, my lady.”

Then she pretended to remember Basil, who watched her silently, pale and scarcely able to contain himself.

“You can show Mr. Kent out. Miller. And if he happens call again you can say that I’m not at home.”

With scornful insolence she saw him go, and once again remained mistress of the situation.

Then came three years at the Cape, for Basil, unwilling to return to England, stayed after the expiration of the year for which he had enlisted. At first his shame seemed unendurable, and he brooded over it night and day; but when the distance increased between him and Europe, when at length he set foot on African soil, the load of dishonour grew lighter to bear. His squadron was quickly sent up-country, and the hard work relieved his aching mind; the drudgery of a trooper’s lot, the long marches, the excitement and the novelty, exhausted him so that he slept with a soundness he had never known before. Then came the sheer toil of war and its dull monotony; he suffered from hunger and thirst, from heat and cold. But these things drew him closer to the companions from whom at first he had sought to hide himself; he was touched by their rough good-humour, their mutual help, and the sympathy with which they used him in sickness; his bitterness towards mankind in general diminished when he saw human good-fellowship face to face with actual hardship; and when at last he found himself in battle, though he had looked forward to it with horrible anxiety, fearing that he might be afraid, Basil felt a great exhilaration which made life most excellent to live. For then vice and squalor and ugliness vanished away, and men stood before one another in primeval strength, the blood burning in their veins, and Death walked between contending hosts; and where Death is there can be nothing petty, sordid, nor mean.