December Love Part 46

"I only put that red-faced old ruffian here as a joke. Directly I set eyes on him I knew he ought to have been in quod himself! Come now, what do you say? Look here! I'll make a bargain with you. I'll give you the thing when it's done."

Miss Van Tuyn looked at Garstin in amazement, and missed the sudden gleam of light that came into Arabian's eyes. But Garstin did not miss it and repeated:

"I'll give you the thing! Now what do you say? Is it a bargain?"

"But how can I accept?" said Arabian, quickly adding: "And how can I refuse? Mr.--"

"Drop the Mister, I say."

"d.i.c.k Garstin then."

"That's better."

"I wish to tell you that I am not a connoisseur of art. On the other hand, please, I have an eye for what is fine. Mademoiselle, I hope, will say it is so?"

He looked at Miss Van Tuyn.

"Mr. Arabian made some remarkably cute remarks about the portraits, d.i.c.k," she said in reply to the glance.

"I care for a fine painting so much that really I do not know how to refuse the temptation you offer me--d.i.c.k Garstin."

Garstin poured himself out another whisky.

"I'll start on it to-morrow," he said, staring hard at the man who had now become definitely his subject.

Soon afterwards Arabian got up and said he must go. As he said this he looked pleadingly at Miss Van Tuyn. But she sat still in her chair, a cigarette between her lips. He said "good-bye" to her formally. Garstin went down with Arabian to let him out, and was away for three or four minutes. From her chair Miss Van Tuyn heard a murmur of voices, then presently a loud ba.s.s: "To-morrow morning at eleven sharp," then the bang of a door. A minute later Garstin bounded up the stairs heavily, yet with a strong agility.

"I've got him, my girl! He's afraid of it like the devil, but I've got him. I hit on the only way. I found the only bait which my fish would take. Now for another cigar."

He seized the box.

"Did you see his eyes when I said I'd give him the picture?"

"No; I was looking at you."

"Then you missed revelation. I had diagnosed him all right."

"Tell me your diagnosis."

"I told it you long ago. That fellow is a being of the underworld."

Miss Van Tuyn slightly reddened.

"I wonder!" she said. "I'm not at all sure that you're right, d.i.c.k."

"What did you gather when I put him through his paces just now?" he asked, sending out clouds of strong-smelling smoke.

"Oh, I don't know! Not very much. He seems to have been about, to have plenty of money."

"And no education. He doesn't know a thing about pictures, painters.

Just at first I thought he might have been a model. Not a bit of it! Books mean nothing to him. What that chap has studied is the p.o.r.nographic book of life, my girl. He has no imagination. His feeling runs straight in the direction of sensuality. He's as ignorant and as clever as they're made. He's never done a stroke of honest work in his life, and despises all those who are fools enough to toil, me among them. He is as acquisitive as a monkey and a magpie rolled into one.

His const.i.tution is made of iron, and I dare say his nerves are made of steel. He's a rare one, I tell you, and I'll make a rare picture of him."

"I don't know whether you are right, d.i.c.k."

Garstin seemed quite unaffected by her doubt of his power to read character. Perhaps at that moment he was coolly reading hers, and laughing to himself about women. But if so, he did not show it. And she said in a moment:

"You are really going to give him the portrait?"

"Yes, when I've exhibited it. Not before, of course. The gentleman isn't going to have it all his own way."

Miss Van Tuyn looked rather thoughtful, even preoccupied. Almost immediately afterwards she got up to go.

"Coming to-morrow?" he said.

"What--to see you paint?"

"Coming?"

"You really mean that I may?"

"I do. You'll help me."

She looked rather startled, and then, immediately, keenly curious.

"I don't see how."

"No reason you should! Now off with you! I've got things to do."

"Then good-bye."

As she was going away she stopped for a moment before the portrait of the judge.

"He found out why you painted that portrait."

"Arabian?" said Garstin.

"Yes. And he said something about it that wasn't stupid."

"What was that?"

"He said it was more than a portrait of one man, that it was a portrait of the world's hypocrisy."

"d.a.m.ned good!" said Garstin with a sonorous chuckle. "And his portrait will be more than the portrait of one man."

"Yes?" she said, looking eagerly at him.

But he would not say anything more, and she went away full of deep curiosity, but thankful that she had decided to stay on in London.