Part 44 (1/2)
”Well, Americans never get like that. They are too practical.”
”And not romantic--do you mean?” she said, not without irony.
”They can be romantic, but they save themselves from disaster with their practical sense. I hope I put it right.”
She smiled at him.
”You speak very good English. What do you think of this?”
”But I have seen her!” he said.
They had come to the easel on which was the half-finished portrait of Cora, staring across her empty gla.s.s.
”She goes to the Cafe Royal.”
He looked again at Miss Van Tuyn.
”Do you ever go there?” he asked gravely.
”No, never,” she said with calm simplicity, returning his gaze.
”Well she--that woman--sits there alone just like that. She has a purpose. She is waiting for someone to come in who will come some night. And she knows that, and will wait, like a dog before a hole which contains something he intends to kill. This Mr. d.i.c.k Garstin is very clever. He is more than a painter; he is an understander.”
”Ah!” she said, intimately pleased by this remark. ”You do appreciate him! Garstin is great because he paints not merely for the eye that looks for a sort of painted photograph, but for the eye that demands a summing up of character.”
Arabian looked sideways at her.
”What is that--of character, mademoiselle?”
”A summing up! That is a presentation of the sum total of the character.”
”Oh, yes.”
He looked again at Cora.
”One knows what she is by that,” he said.
Then, standing still, he looked rapidly all round the studio, glancing first at one portrait then at another, with eyes which despite their l.u.s.trous softness, seemed to make a sort of prey of whatever they lighted on.
”But they are all women and all of a certain world!” he said, almost suspiciously. ”Why is that?”
”Garstin is pa.s.sing through a phase just now. He paints from the Cafe Royal.”
”Oh!”
He paused, and his brown face took on a look of rather hard meditation.
”Does he never paint what they call decent people?” he inquired. ”One may occasionally spend an hour at the Cafe Royal--especially if one is not English--without belonging to the _bas-fonds_. I do not know whether Mr. d.i.c.k Garstin understands that.”
”Of course he does,” she said, instantly grasping the meaning of his hesitation. ”But there is one portrait--of a man--which I don't think you have looked at.”