It was a curious face upon which shone the red sunlight, being long and narrow, with lantern jaws and a thin, hawk-like nose. Thread-like black eyebrows in a straight line above piercing dark eyes and a scanty black moustache twisted jauntily at the ends over tightly-closed lips. Curly hair, the colour of ebony, worn longer than usual, and touched at the temples with grey, appeared from under his soft wideawake, around which was twisted a blue handkerchief with white spots. A livid, cadaverous-looking face, with the haggard expression of one who had lived a fast life; nevertheless it appeared full of animation and nervous energy.
He was tall, being much above the average height, with sloping shoulders and a slender, well-knit figure, clad in a rough suit of grey homespun, which he wore with a certain natural grace. His feet were well-shaped and neatly shod in tan-coloured boots, and his hands, long and slender, were those of an artist.
Not strictly handsome, perhaps, but with a certain insolent dash of recklessness about him which suited his Spanish-looking face, and stamped him at once as a Bohemian. A man who cared for no one so long as his personal desires were gratified, a man who would stop at nothing to gratify those desires, in short, a man who had lived forty-five years in the world without making a single friend; which fact speaks for itself. A thorough scamp, ever on the edge of an abyss, yet by some miracle never losing his balance, Basil Beaumont had fascinated many men and women, but they always found his friendship too expensive to maintain; therefore the result was ever the same, they retired, sooner or later, on some pretext or another, leaving him solitary and alone.
Mr. Beaumont was smoking a cigarette--he was always smoking cigarettes--morn, noon, and night those deadly little rolls of paper were between his thin lips, and though doctors warned him of the danger to his nerves, he laughed at their croakings.
"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."