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.

But finally the idea came to Basil that it was not brave to remain there in concealment. For such talents as he had the Cape offered no scope, and he made up his mind to return to London, holding up his head proudly, and there show what stuff he was made of. He felt more self-reliant because he knew he could withstand cheerfully fatigue and want; and the medal on his breast proved that he lacked not courage.

Back at length in London, he entered his name at Lincoln’s Inn, and while arranging for publication a little series of sketches he had written during the war, worked hard at law. Though the storm through which he passed had left him somewhat taciturn, with a leaning towards introspection, at bottom Basil was no less open-hearted and sanguine than before, and he entered upon this new phase with glowing hopes. But sometimes his chambers in the Temple seemed very lonely. He was a man who yearned for domestic ties; a woman’s hands busied about him, the rustle of a dress or the sound of a loving voice were necessities of his nature. And now it seemed the last bitterness of his life would be removed, for Mrs. Murray offered just that affection which he needed, and still somewhat distrustful of himself, he looked for support to her strength.

Then, in the midst of his thought, Basil frowned, for on a sudden there had arisen in his mind a form which in his new-born joy he had momentarily forgotten. Leaving the bridge, he wandered to the greater darkness of the Mall, his hands behind him; and for a long time walked up and down beneath the trees, perplexed and downcast. It was very late, and there was scarcely a soul about; on the seats homeless wretches lay asleep, huddled in grotesque attitudes, and a policeman stealthily crept along behind them.

Some months before, Basil, instead of lunching in hall, went by chance into a tavern in Fleet Street, and there saw behind the bar a young girl whose extreme beauty at once attracted his attention. Her freshness was charming in that tawdry place, gray with London smoke notwithstanding the gaudiness of its decoration; and though not a man to gossip with barmaids over his refreshment, in this case he could not resist a commonplace remark. To this the girl answered rather saucily, (a public-house is apparently an excellent school for repartee,) and her bright smile gave a new witchery to the comely face. Interested and a little thrilled, for there was none on whom sheer beauty made a greater impression, Basil told Frank Hurrell, then resident physician at St. Luke’s, that he had found in Fleet Street of all places the loveliest woman in London, The doctor laughed at his friend’s enthusiasm, and one day when they were passing, Basil, to justify himself, insisted on going again to the Golden Crown. Then once or twice he went alone, and the barmaid, beginning to recognise him, gave a little friendly nod of greeting. Basil had ever something of a romantic fancy, and his quick imagination decked the pretty girl with whimsical conceits: he dignified her trade by throwing back the date, and seeing in her a neat-footed maid who gave sack to cavaliers and men-at-arms; she was Hebe pouring nectar for the immortal gods; and when he told her this with other fantastic inventions, the girl, though she did not altogether comprehend, reddened as the grosser compliments of the usual frequenters of the bar—accredited admirers—had no power to make her. Basil thought he had never seen anything more captivating than that blush.

And then he began to visit the Golden Crown more frequently—at tea-time, when there were fewest people. The pair grew friendly; and they discussed the weather, the customers, and the news of the day. Basil found that half an hour passed very pleasantly in her company, and perhaps he was a little flattered because the barmaid set greater store on his society than on that of the other claimants to her attention. One afternoon, going somewhat later than usual, he was delighted with the bright look that lit her face like sunshine on his appearance.

“I was afraid you weren’t coming, Mr. Kent.”

By now she used his name, and hers he found was Jenny Bush.

“Would you have minded if I hadn’t?”

“A bit.”

At that moment the second barmaid of the Golden Crown came to her.

“It’s your evening out to-night, isn’t it, Jenny?”

“Yes, it is.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Jenny; “I haven’t made any plans.”

A customer came in, and Jenny’s friend shook hands with him.

“Same as usual, I suppose?” she said.

“Would you like to come to the play with me?” asked Basil lightly. “We’ll have a bit of dinner first, and then go wherever you like.”

The suggestion flashed across his mind, and he spoke the words without thinking. Jenny’s eyes sparkled with pleasure.

“Oh, I should like it. Come and fetch me here at seven, will you?”

But then came in a somewhat undersized young man, with obviously false teeth and a jaunty air. Basil vaguely knew that he was engaged to Jenny, and on most days he might be seen making sheep’s eyes across the bar, and drinking innumerable whiskies-and-soda.

“Coming out to dinner, Jenny?” he said. “I’ll stand you a seat at the Tivoli if you like.”

“I’m afraid I can’t to-night, Tom,” she answered, blushing slightly. “I’ve made other arrangements.”

“What arrangements?”

“A friend has promised to take me to the theatre.”

“Who’s that?” answered the man, with an ugly look.

“That’s my business, isn’t it?” answered Jenny.

“Well, if you won’t tell me, I’m off.”

“I’m not stopping you, am I?”

“Just give me a Scotch-and-soda, will you? And look sharp about it.”

The man spoke impudently, wishing to remind Jenny that she was there to carry out his orders. Basil reddened, and with some sharpness was about to say that he would be discreet to use greater politeness, when Jenny’s eyes stopped him. Without a word she gave the clerk what he asked for, and the three of them remained silent.

Presently the new-comer finished his liquor and lit a cigarette. He glanced suspiciously at Basil, and opened his mouth to make an observation, but catching the other’s steady look, thought better of it.

“Good-night then,” he said to Jenny.

When he was gone Basil asked her why she had not thrown him over; it would have been better than to vex her lover.

“I don’t care,” cried Jenny; “I’m about sick of the airs he gives himself. I’m not married to him yet, and if he won’t let me do as I like now he can just take himself off.”

They dined at a restaurant in Soho, and Basil, in high spirits over the little adventure, was amused with the girl’s delight. It did his heart good to cause such pleasure, and perhaps his satisfaction was not lessened by the attention which Jenny’s comeliness attracted. She was rather shy, but when Basil strove to entertain her laughed very prettily and flushed: the idea came to him that he would much like to be of use to her, for she seemed to have a very agreeable nature; he might give her new ideas and a view of the beauty of life which she had never known. She wore a hat, and he morning dress, so they took seats in the back-row of the dress circle at the Gaiety; but even this was unwonted luxury to Jenny, accustomed to the pit or the upper boxes. At the end of the performance she turned to him with dancing eyes.

“Oh, I have enjoyed myself,” she cried. “I like going out with you much more than with Tom; he’s always trying to save money.”

They took a cab to the Golden Crown, where Jenny shared a room with the other barmaid.

“Will you come out with me again?” asked Basil.

“Oh, I should love to. You’re so different from the other men who come to the bar. You’re a gentleman, and you treat me—as if I was a lady. That’s why I first liked you, because you didn’t go on as if I was a lump of dirt: you always called me Miss Bush. . . .”

“I’d much rather call you Jenny.”

“Well, you may,” she answered, smiling and blushing. All those fellows who hang about the bar think they can do anything with me. You never tried to kiss me like they do.”

“It’s not because I didn’t want to, Jenny,” answered Basil, laughing.

She made no reply, but looked at him with smiling mouth and tender eyes; he would have been a fool not to recognise the invitation. He slipped his arm round her waist and touched her lips, but he was astonished at the frank surrender with which she received his embrace, and the fugitive pressure turned into a kiss so passionate that Basil’s limbs tingled. The cab stopped at the Golden Crown, and he helped her out.

“Good-night.”

Next day, when he went to the public-house, Jenny blushed deeply, but she greeted him with a quiet intimacy which in his utter loneliness was very gratifying. It caused him singular content that someone at last took an interest in him. Freedom is all very well, but there are moments when a man yearns for someone to whom his comings and goings, his health or illness, are not matters of complete indifference.

“Don’t go yet,” said Jenny; “I want to tell you something.”

He waited till the bar was clear.

“I’ve broken off my engagement with Tom,” she said then. “He waited on the other side of the street last night and saw us go out together. And this morning he came in and rounded on me. I told him if he didn’t like it he could lump it. And then he got nasty, and I told him I wouldn’t have anything more to do with him.”

Basil looked at her for a moment silently.

“But aren’t you fond of him, Jenny?”

“No; I can’t bear the sight of him. I used to like him well enough, but it’s different now. I’m glad to be rid of him.”

Basil could not help knowing it was on his account that she had broken off the engagement. He felt a curious thrill of power, and his heart beat with elation and pride, but at the same time he feared he was doing her some great injury.

“I’m very sorry,” he murmured. “I’m afraid I’ve done you harm.”

“You won’t stop coming here because of this?” she asked, anxiously watching his doubtful face.

His first thought was that a sudden rupture might be best for both of them, but he could not bear that on his account pain should darken those beautiful eyes, and when he saw the gathering tears he put it aside hastily.

“No, of course not. If you like to see me I’m only too glad to come.”

“Promise that you’ll come every day.”

“I’ll come as often as I can.”

“No, that won’t do. You must come every day.”

“Well, I will.”

He was touched by her eagerness, for he must have been a dolt not to see that Jenny cared a good deal for him, but introspective though he was, never asked himself what were his own feelings. He wished to have a good influence on her, and vowed she should never through him come to any harm. She was very unlike his notion of the ordinary barmaid, and he thought it would be simple to lead her to some idea of personal dignity; he would have liked to take her away from that rather degrading occupation, placing her where she could learn more easily: her character, notwithstanding three years at the Golden Crown, was very ingenuous, but in those surroundings she could not for ever remain unspoilt, and it would have seemed a justification of his friendship if he could put her in the way to lead a more beautiful life. The most obvious result of these deliberations was that Basil presently made it a practice to take Jenny on her free evenings to dinner and to the play.

As for her, she had never known anyone like the young barrister who impressed her by the courtesy of his manner and the novelty of his conversation: though often she did understand the things he said, she was flattered nevertheless, and, womanlike, simulated a comprehension which made Basil think her less uneducated than she really was. At first she was intimidated by the grave stateliness of his treatment, for she was accustomed to less respect, and he could not have used a duchess with more polite decorum; but insensibly admiration and awe passed into love, and at last into blind adoration of which Basil not for a moment dreamed. She wondered why since that first night he had never kissed her, but at parting merely gave his hand; in three months she had advanced only so far as to use his Christian name.

At length the spring came. Along Fleet Street and the Strand flower-women offered for sale gay vernal blossoms, and baskets gave a dash of colour to the City’s hurrying gray. There were days when the very breath of the country, bland and generous, seemed to blow down the crowded thoroughfare, uplifting weary hearts despondent with long monotonous toil: the sky was blue, and it was same sky that overhung green meadows and trees bursting into leaf. Sometimes towards the west bevies of cloud, dazzling in the sunshine, were piled upon one another, and at sundown, all rosy and golden, would fill the street with their effulgence, so that the smoky vapours took a gorgeous opalescence, and the heart beat with sheer delight of this goodly London town.

One balmy night in May, when the air was suave and fragrant, so that the heavy step was lightened and the tired mind eased by a strange sad gaiety, Jenny dined with Basil at the little restaurant in Soho where now they were well known. Afterwards they went to a music-hall, but the noise and the glare on that sweet night were unendurable; the pleasant darkness of the streets called to them, and Basil soon proposed that they should go from that place of tedium. Jenny agreed with relief, for the singers left her listless, and an unquiet emotion, which she had never known, made her heart throb with indescribable yearning. As they passed into the night she looked at Basil for a moment with wide-open eyes, in which, strangely mingled, were terror and the primitive savagery of some wild thing.

“Let’s go on the Embankment,” she whispered. “It’s quiet there.”

They looked at the silent flowing river and at the warehouses of the Surrey side, uneven against the starlit sky. From one of these gleamed like a malevolent eye one solitary light, and it gave mystery to that square mass of dingy brick, suggesting some grim story of lawless passion and crime. It was low-tide, and below the stone wall was a long strip of shining mud; but Waterloo Bridge, with its easy arches, was oddly dapper, and its lights, yellow and white, threw gay reflections on the water. Near at hand, outlined vaguely by their red lamps, were moored three barges; and there was a weird magic about them, for, notwithstanding their present abandonment, they spoke of strenuous life and passion and toil; for all their squalid brutality there was romance in the hard, strong men who dwelt there on the widening river, travelling on an eternal pilgrimage to the salt sea and the open.

They wandered slowly towards Westminster Bridge, and the lights of the Embankment in their sinuous line were strangely reflected, so that a forest was seen on the river of fiery piles on which might have been built a mystic, invisible city. But the short walk wearied them, though the night was sweet with the savour of springtime, and their limbs were heavy as lead.

“I can’t walk back,” said Jenny; “I’m too tired.”

“Let us take a cab.”

Basil hailed a passing hansom, and they got in. He gave the address in Fleet Street of the Golden Crown. They did not speak, but the silence told them things more significant than ever words had done. At last, in a voice not her own, as though speech were dragged from her, Jenny broke the oppressive stillness.

“Why have you never kissed me since that first night, Basil?”

She did not look at him, and he made no sign that he heard, but she felt the trembling of his limbs. Her throat grew hot and dry, and a horrible anxiety seized her.

“Basil!” she said hoarsely, insisting on an answer.

“Because I didn’t dare.”

She could count now the throbbing of that torturer in her breast, and the cabman seemed to drive as for a wager. They sped along the Embankment, and it was very dark.

“But I wanted you to,” she said fiercely.

“Jenny, don’t let us make fools of ourselves.”

But as though his words were from the mouth only, and a stronger power mastered him, even as he spoke he sought her lips; and because he had resisted so long their sweetness was doubly sweet. With a stifled gasp like a wild beast, she flung her arms about him, and the soft fragrance of her body drove away all thoughts but one: mindless of the passers-by, he pressed her eagerly to his heart. He was mad with her fair, yielding beauty and the passion of her surrender, mad with that never-ending kiss, than which in his whole life he had never known a greater rapture. And his heart trembled like a leaf trembling before the wind.

“Will you come back to my rooms, Jenny?” he whispered.

She did not answer, but drew herself more closely to him. He lifted the trap in the roof of the hansom and told the cabman to drive to the Temple.


For a week, for a month even, feeling stronger and braver because this woman had given him her love, Basil enjoyed a very ecstasy of pride; he faced the world with greater assurance, and life possessed a spirit and a vigour which were quite new to him. But presently the romantic adventure gained the look of a somewhat vulgar intrigue, and when he recalled his ideal of an existence, spotless and pure, given over to noble pursuits, he was ashamed. This love of his was nothing more than a passing whim of which the knell sounded with its gratification, and he saw with dismay that Jenny had given herself to him body and soul: on her side it was a deathless passion compared with which his attachment was very cold. Each day fanned the flames in her heart, so that he became a necessity of her existence, and if by chance he was too busy to see her an anxious letter came, pitiful in its faulty spelling and clumsy expression, imploring him to visit her. Jenny was exacting, and he resigned himself to going every day to the Golden Crown, though that bar grew ever more distasteful. The girl was quite uneducated, and the evenings they spent together—for now, instead of going to a theatre, Jenny passed her leisure in Basil’s rooms—went rather heavily; he found it sometimes hard work to make conversation. He realised that he was manacled hand and foot with fetters that were only more intolerable because they consisted of nothing more substantial than the dread of causing pain. He was a man who bore uneasily an irregular attachment of this sort, and he asked himself what could be the end; a dozen times he made up his mind to break with Jenny, but coming to the point, when he saw how dependent she was upon his love, had not the courage. For six months, degraded to a habit, the connection went on.

But it was only by reminding himself constantly that he was not free that Basil abated his nascent love for Mrs. Murray, and he imagined that his feeling towards her was different from any he had known before. His desire now was overwhelming to break from the past that sullied him, and thenceforward to lead a fresher, more wholesome life: cost what it might, he must finish with Jenny. He knew that Mrs. Murray meant to winter abroad, and there was no reason why he, too, should not go to Italy; there he might see her occasionally, and at the end of six months, with a free conscience, ask her to be his wife.

Thinking he saw the way more clearly before him, Basil ceased his lonely promenade and walked slowly into Piccadilly. After the stir and restless movement of the day, the silence there, unnatural and almost ghostly, seemed barely credible; and the great street, solemn and empty and broad, descended in a majestic sweep with the tranquillity and ease of some placid river. The air was pure and limpid, but resonant, so that a solitary cab on a sudden sent the whole place ringing, and the emphatic trot of the horse clattered with long reverberations. The line of electric lights, impressive by their regularity, self-asserting and staid, flung their glare upon the houses with an indifferent violence, and lower down threw into distinctness the straight park railing and the nearer trees, outlining more sombrely the leafy darkness beyond. And between, outshone, like an uneven string of discoloured gems twinkled the yellow flicker of the gas-jets. Everywhere was silence, but the houses, white except for the gaping windows, had a different silence from the rest; for in their sleep, closed and bolted, they lined the pavement helplessly, disordered and undignified, as though without the busy hum of human voices and the hurrying of persons in and out they had lost all significance.