Part 53 (2/2)
”Well, I hate it.”
He turned away, sat down on a divan, and let his big knuckly hands drop down between his knees.
”Fact is, I haven't got at the fellow's secret,” he said meditatively.
”I got a first impression--”
He paused.
”I know!” said Miss Van Tuyn, deeply interested. ”You told me what it was.”
”The successful blackmailer. Yes. But now I don't know. I can't make him out. He's the hardest nut to crack I ever came across.”
He moved his long lips from side to side three or four times, then pursed them up, lifted his small eyes, which had been staring between his feet at a Persian rug on the parquet in front of the divan, looked at Miss Van Tuyn, who was standing before him, and said:
”That's why I sat up all night playing poker with him.”
”Ah!” she said, beginning to understand
She sat down beside him, turned towards him, and said eagerly:
”You wanted to get really to know him?”
”Yes; but I didn't. The fellow's an enigma. He's bad. And that's practically all I know about him.”
He glanced with distaste at the sketch he had made.
”And it isn't enough. It isn't enough by a d.a.m.ned long way.”
”Is he a good loser?” she asked.
”The best I ever saw. Never turned a hair, and went away looking as fresh as a well-watered gardenia, d.a.m.n him!”
”Who were the others?”
”Two Americans I've seen now and then at the Cafe Royal. I believe they live mostly in Paris.”
”Friends of his?”
”I don't think so. He said they came and sat down at his table in the cafe and started talking. I suggested the poker. They didn't. So it wasn't a plant.”
”Perhaps he isn't bad,” she said; ”and perhaps that's why you can't paint him.”
”What d'you mean?”
”I mean because you have made up your mind that he is. I think you have a fixed idea about that.”
”What?”
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