upon its conquest and her attitude toward the detestable Mrs. Gilchrist was colored by that fact. An acquaintanceship with the Gilchrists had been achieved through manœuverings of her daughters as workers in charity bazaars managed by the woman.
Until the death of her husband Mrs. Basine had ignored her two daughters. A proprietory feeling in them which exhausted itself in dictating the surface details of their lives had been the extent of her interest. She had presumed during their childhood and adolescence that they were Basines—and nothing else. This had guided her parenthood. Being Basines, they must conform to Basinism which meant that they must be like their mother or their father and she struggled carelessly to see that their youth did not assert itself in ways inimical to her own characterization. Doris the younger was inclined to be beautiful. Fanny, however, had always seemed to her a more substantial person.
But her widowhood had brought a belated curiosity concerning these young women. She wondered at times what their dreams were. She understood that they were strangers and this began to interest her. She was proud of them and although undemonstrative would sometimes put her arms around both of them as they walked to a neighbor's after dinner.
They did not inspire the pride in her, however, that her son did. George had finished his law and she felt as she listened to him talk or watched his face at the table that he was somebody. There was an assurance and health about him. His keen-featured face, the straight black hair parted in the center, the movements of his lithe body, always quick and definite—and particularly his hands—these made her think of him vaguely as an artist, somebody different. She knew in her heart that although he seemed to differ in his ideas from none of their friends, he was not like other young men.
3
It was Sunday morning. Mrs Basine and her two daughters were sitting down to breakfast. Hugh Keegan followed Basine embarrassedly into the dining room. The two young men had been renovating themselves for an hour in the bathroom.
The meal started casually. Fanny Basine studied their guest with what was meant to be a provoking carelessness. She was a facile virgin who wooed men persistently and slapped their faces for misunderstanding her.
"You've been quite a stranger, Mr. Keegan," she said. Her eyes smiled. Keegan felt wretched. He was conscious of being unclean. The fresh, virginal face of the girl smiling at him filled him with rage. He accepted a waffle from Mrs. Basine with exaggerated formality.
He was not enraged with himself. This was too difficult. It was easier, simpler to be repentant. His repentance did not accuse him as a man who had sinned but denounced the things which had caused him to sin and made him unclean. To himself he was essentially perfect. There were forces, however, which infringed upon his perfection, which soiled his fine qualities.
Eating his waffle, he thought of the creature with whom he had spent the night, of the dismal bedroom, the frowsy smelling hallway, the coarse talk and viciousness of the entire business. And he began to feel a rage against them. He would like to wipe such things out of the world. He managed to answer Miss Basine politely.
"I've been out of town a great deal," he said.
"George always said you were a gadfly," Fanny replied.
Mrs. Basine spoke.
"You look rather tired, George." She gazed pensively at her son. "I don't like you to stay out all night like that."
Basine frowned. What did his mother mean by that? Did she suppose he had spent the night in debauchery? It sounded that way from the way she looked and talked. Basine grew angry. He did not want his mother to accuse him.
"You don't expect a man to remain cooped up night and day, do you?"
"Oh, I don't mind your going out. But not the way you did last night."
She looked at him and then, as if realizing for the first time the presence of her daughters, changed her manner.
"Won't you have some syrup, Mr. Keegan."
Keegan thanked her and lowered his eyes. He had understood her accusation and accepted it as authentic. He had no mother of his own and this inspired in him a curious sense of obedience toward all mothers he encountered. Mrs. Basine's accusation embarrassed him. The embarrassment increased his disgust for the memory of the night. He would like to wipe out such obscene and vulgar things. He would like to burn them up, forbid them. Someday he would.
Basine, however regarded his mother with a sense of outrage. The fact that her surmise of what he had done during the night was correct was a matter of minor importance. She didn't know what he had done and therefore she had no right to guess. He answered her angrily.
"I did nothing at all last night that I wouldn't have my sisters do."
His mother looked at him in surprise. Keegan blushed.
"You're always hinting around, mother, about things and you're absolutely wrong. Absolutely," he added for a clincher. His eyes remained unflinchingly on his mother.
There was a convincing air of virtue about him and a doubt entered her mind. Perhaps she had suspected him unjustly. But he had been away all night. She had heard him come in around six. Where could he have been if not—in such places? Yet she felt like apologizing.
Basine fiddled with his food. He was acting out the part of injured innocence. He was an unprotesting martyr to the low suspicions of his family. The fact that he was guilty in no way interfered with the sincerity of his injured feelings. His mother's accusation had sincerely hurt him, even more than it would had he been actually innocent of wrong doing. He transferred whatever emotional guilt he had into indignation toward his accuser.
This was an old trick of his, developed early in childhood—a faculty of committing crimes without becoming a criminal. More than Keegan, he was above self-accusation. But unlike Keegan the doing of a thing he knew to be wrong did not inspire him with the adroit remorse which took the form of hating the thing he had done instead of himself.
The crimes Basine committed—usually no greater than normal violations of the ethical code to which he subscribed—were things that had nothing to do with the real Basine. The real Basine was the Basine whom people knew. The real Basine was a characterization he maintained for the benefit of others. The crimes were his own secret. People didn't know them. Therefor they did not exist. They remained locked away. He did not say to himself, "Hypocrite! Liar!"
When he denied his mother's accusation he did not of course forget the things he had done during the night. In fact even while he spoke there came to him a vivid memory of the prostitute.
In disproving the existence of this memory he was not disproving it for himself but for his mother. His energy as usual was bent toward presenting a certain Basine for the admiration of another. The Basine he sought to create for the admiration of his family was a moral and honest man. When they seemed inclined to challenge this creation, their suspicions angered him.
His attitude was that of a creator toward a hostile critic. He frequently lost his temper and denounced their suspicions as unjust, unfair. And in his mind, conveniently clouded by indignation, they were. Not to himself as he was, but to the self he insisted upon pretending at the moment he was.
This self was the Basine he was continually creating—a Basine that was not based upon deeds or truths or facts but upon ideals. It was an ideal Basine—a nobly edited version of his character. He believed in this ideal Basine with a curious passion. This ideal Basine was a mixture of lies, shams, perversions of fact. But that was only when you considered him in relation to his creator—to its original. In his own mind it was as absurd to consider this ideal Basine in relation to its creator as it would have been for a critic of æsthetics to consider the merits of Oscar Wilde's poetry in relation to the degeneracy of the man.
Considered by himself, the ideal Basine was a person of inspiring virtues. He was proud of the things he pretended