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A wry smile wrinkled the corners of Dyck's mouth. "You mean his wife?" he asked with irony. "Wife no!" retorted the old man. "Damn it, no! He wasn't the man to remain true to his wife." "So I understand," remarked Dyck; "but I don't know his wife. I never saw her, except at the trial, and I was so sorry for her I ceased to be sorry for my self. She had a beautiful, strange, isolated face."
"I want it at this moment when the men who have fought under me have helped to win your battle, sir." There was something so set in Dyck's voice that the admiral had a sudden revulsion against him, yet, after a moment of thought, he made a sign to Captain Ivy.
When Van Dyck was about thirty-six years old he married a great lady, the Lady Mary Ruthven, granddaughter of the Earl of Gowrie, but before that he had had a lady-love, Margaret Lemon, whom he painted as the Virgin and in several other pictures. When he married Lady Mary, Margaret Lemon was so furiously jealous that she tried to injure Van Dyck's right hand so that he could paint no more.
Dyck and his small escort got away by a road unseen from where the Maroons were, and when well away put their horses to a canter and got into the hills. Once in the woods, however, they rode alertly, and Dyck's eyes were everywhere. He was quick to see a bush move, to observe the flick of a branch, to catch the faintest sound of an animal origin.
The wine was drugged. He had watched the decline of Dyck's fortunes with an eye of appreciation; he had seen the clouds of poverty and anxiety closing in. He had known of old Miles Calhoun's financial difficulties. He had observed Dyck's wayside loitering with revolutionists, and he had taken it with too much seriousness. He knew the condition of Dyck's purse.
In the end, with all the aids that critics may have given him, and all the faults they may find in him, Van Dyck was a great, and in the main an earnest portrait painter. Perhaps 'Charles in white satin, just descended from his horse, is the best of the single portraits which were held to be Van Dyck's forte.
He took the mugs from their hands, and for a minute stood like some ancient priest who had performed a noble ritual. As Sheila looked at him, she kept saying to herself: "He's a spirit; he isn't a man!" Dyck's eye met that of Sheila, and he saw with the same feeling what was working in her heart. "Well, we must be going," he said to Christopher Dogan.
One of them attracted Leonora. Leaning back on a side-seat in the cafe, she would sit and watch him for hours and hours. He was a fair-haired, extremely delicate boy. His tapering goatee and his fine, silky hair, covered by a sweeping, soft felt hat, made her think of Van Dyck's portrait of Charles I of England that she had seen in print somewhere.
For a moment there seemed doubt in Dyck's mind what to do, but presently he had decided. "Ride slow for Salem," he said. "It's Maroons there in the bush. They are waiting for night. They won't attack us now. They're in ambush of that I'm sure. If they want to capture Salem, they'll not give alarm by firing on us, so if we ride on they'll think we haven't sensed them.
"Why?" "Because she is going to die and there is no time to lose. Come, we will go to Lord Mallow." "Mallow!" A look of bitter triumph came into Dyck's face. "Mallow at last!" he said. Lord Mallow frowned on his secretary. "Mr. Calhoun to see me! What's his business?" "One can guess, your honour. He's been fighting for the island." "Why should he see me? There is the general commanding."
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