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.