Part 120 (1/2)
”But, please, do you understand my feeling? Would you like to be made what you are not--a beast?”
Sir Seymour saw Garstin, perhaps with difficulty, shutting off a smile.
”I can't say I should,” he answered, with absolute gravity.
”Would you,” pursued Arabian, apparently in desperate earnest, ”would you allow a picture of you like this to be shown to all your friends?”
”I think,” returned Sir Seymour, still with an absolute and simple gravity, ”that I should object to that--strongly.”
”You hear!” said Arabian to Garstin. ”It is your friend who says this.”
”I can't help that,” said Garstin, totally unperturbed. ”I'm going to exhibit that picture.”
”No! No!” said Arabian.
And as he spoke he suddenly bared his teeth.
Garstin, without making any rejoinder to this almost brutally forcible exclamation, which was full of violent will, thrust a hand into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a big gold watch.
”I say, I'm awfully sorry,” he said, with a swift glance at Sir Seymour, which the latter did not miss, ”but I must turn you both out. I'm dining at the Arts Club to-night. Jinks--you know the Slade Jinks--is coming to pick me up. You'll forgive me, Sir Seymour?”
His voice was unusually gentle as he said the last words.
”Of course. I've stayed an unconscionable time. Are you going my way, Mr. Arabian?”
Garstin's mouth twitched. Before Arabian could reply, Garstin said:
”Look here, Arabian!”
”Yes--please?” said Arabian.
”You and I differ pretty badly about this business of your d.a.m.ned portrait.”
”Ah, yes!”
”Sir Seymour's a just man, a very just man. Let's hear what he has to say.”
”But you tell us you have no time!”
”Exactly! Jinks you know! He's a devil for punctuality. They set the clocks by him at the Slade! But _you_--”
”Yes?”
”Talk it over with Sir Seymour. Get his unbiased verdict. And let me hear from you any time to-morrow. He'll say what's fair and square. I know that.”
While speaking he went towards the head of the stairs, followed by Sir Seymour and Arabian. As Arabian pa.s.sed the place where the whisky stood he picked up his gla.s.s and drunk it off at a gulp.
A minute later Sir Seymour and he were out in the night together.
CHAPTER XIII