"Nerves, my dear sir," he said lightly; "men in my position can't afford to have nerves; they are a luxury for the rich and foolish. Why should I have nerves? I don't drink; I don't run away with other men's wives; I don't fret over the unavoidable--bah! smoking is my one redeeming vice."
He had a number of other vices, however, as many young men found to their cost. True, he himself did not drink, but he led others to do so, nor did he covet his neighbour's wife, yet he was by no means averse to playing the part of Sir Pandarus of Troy, provided it was to his own interest to do so. Moreover, he gambled.
It was in this terrible passion--rarely, if ever conquered--that he found his greatest delight. The green cloth-covered table, the painted hieroglyphics of the cards, the hopes, the fears, the gains, the losses, were all to him but a representation of his daily life on a small scale. He gambled with men as he gambled with cards, meeting varied fortunes in both, and risking his luck as recklessly in the game of Life as in the game of baccarat. He was a scamp, a scoundrel, a blackleg of the deepest dye, bankrupt in pocket and in illusions; yet he always kept within the limits of the law, and, moreover, sinned in an eminently gentlemanly manner, which robbed the sordid, feverish life he was leading of its most repulsive features.
Why this artificial man, who lived only in the glare of the gas-lamps, and, owl-like, shunned the searching light of the day, had come to such an out-of-the-way village as Garsworth was a puzzle, but nevertheless a puzzle easy of solution. His object was two-fold. In the first place, he had left London to escape the demands of persistent creditors, and in the second, being a native of the dull little hamlet, he had returned to visit the scenes of his youth not seen by him for three-and-twenty years.
It was not a sentimental longing--no, Mr. Beaumont and sentiment had long since parted company; but Garsworth was a dead and alive place where no one would think of looking for him, so he could stay there in safety until he saw a chance of arranging his pecuniary affairs and leaving the Arcadia he detested for the London he loved.
An artist by profession, though he had not touched a brush for years, he found it necessary to resume his old employment as a reason for his sojourn in Garsworth, for the honest rustics were somewhat suspicious of Basil Beaumont, his character having been none of the best when he left his native place to seek his fortune. So he lived quietly at the principal inn of the village, dawdled about the fields, sketched picturesque landscapes in a desultory manner, and in the meantime corresponded with a dear brother hawk in Town as to his chances of return to the metropolis.
His cigarette burnt down rapidly as he leaned over the fence thinking of his future, so throwing away the stump, he took out his tobacco-pouch and a little book of rice paper, in order to manufacture another, talking to himself meanwhile as is the fashion of solitary men.
"Two weeks," he said musingly, while he deftly rolled the tobacco in his slender fingers, "two weeks in this blessed place--well, there's one good thing, the rest will do me good, and I'll go back to Town as steady as a rock; the medicine is disagreeable, but the result will be excellent. What bad luck I've had lately--everything seems against me. I'll have to make a big effort to get some cash, or I'll end my days in a workhouse--ugh!" shivering again, "not that--God, how I dread poverty! Never mind," he went on gaily, shrugging his shoulders, "there are plenty of fools in this world, and as everything was created for a special purpose, I presume le bon Dieu made fools to feather clever men's nests."
He laughed softly at this cynicism, then, lighting the cigarette, placed it in his mouth and resumed his soliloquy.
"Forty-five and still living on my wits. Ah, Basil, my friend, you've been an awful fool, and yet, if I had to live my life over again, I don't know that I would act differently. Circumstances have been too strong for me. With a certain income I might have been an honest man, but Fate--pish!--why do I blame that unhappy deity whom men always make a scapegoat for their own shortcomings? It's myself, and none other, I should curse. Well, well, rich or poor, honest man or scoundrel, I'll go with all the rest of my species through the valley of the shadow."