Part 46 (2/2)
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.
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