Italy? Is he an isolated case or an epidemic?'
'He is scarcer than Clarence, but he's quite a well-marked type. He is
the millionaire's son who has done Europe and doesn't mean you to
forget it.'
'There was a chesty person with a wave of hair coming down over his
forehead. A sickeningly handsome fellow who looked like a poet. I think
they called him Basil. Does he run around in flocks, or is he unique?'
Ruth did not reply for a moment. Basil Milbank was a part of the past
which, in the year during which Kirk had been away, had come rather
startlingly to life.
There had been a time when Basil had been very near and important to
her. Indeed, but for the intervention of Mrs. Porter, described in an
earlier passage, she would certainly have married Basil. Then Kirk had
crossed her path and had monopolized her. During the studio period the
recollection of Basil had grown faint. After that, just at the moment
when Kirk was not there to lend her strength, he had come back into her
life. For nearly a year she had seen him daily; and gradually, at first
almost with fear, she had realized that the old fascination was by no
means such a thing of the past as she had supposed.
She had hoped for Kirk's return as a general, sorely pressed, hopes for
reinforcements. With Kirk at her side she felt Basil would slip back
into his proper place in the scheme of things. And, behold! Kirk had
returned and still the tension remained unrelaxed.
For Kirk had changed. After the first day she could not conceal it from
herself. That it was she who had changed did not present itself to her
as a possible explanation of the fact that she now felt out of touch
with her husband. All she knew was that they had been linked together
by bonds of sympathy, and were so no longer.
She found Kirk dull. She hated to admit it, but the truth forced itself
upon her. He had begun to bore her.
She collected her thoughts and answered his question.
'Basil Milbank? Oh, I should call him unique.'
She felt a wild impulse to warn him, to explain the real significance
of this man whom he classed contemptuously with Clarence Grayling and
that absurd little Dana Ferris as somebody of no account. She wanted to
cry out to him that she was in danger and that only he could help her.
But she could not speak, and Kirk went on in the same tone of
half-tolerant contempt:
'Who is he?'
She controlled herself with an effort, and answered indifferently.
'Oh, Basil? Well, you might say he's everything. He plays polo, leads
cotillions, yachts, shoots, plays the piano wonderfully, everything.
People usually like him very much.' She paused. 'Women especially.'
She had tried to put something into her tone which might serve to
awaken him, something which might prepare the way for what she wanted
to say, and what, if she did not say it now, when the mood was on her,
she could never say. But Kirk was deaf.
'He looks that sort of man,' he said.
And, as he said it, the accumulated boredom of the past three hours
found vent in a vast yawn.
