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It made her remember the Cafe Royal on the evening of her meeting with the Georgians, her pressure put on Dick Garstin to make Arabian's acquaintance, her lonely walk in the dark when Arabian had followed her, her first visit to Garstin's studio, her pretended reason for many subsequent visits there.
Is it possible that you still love me enough to care to be more than the friend you have always been to me?" "Do you mean " He paused. "Yes," she said. "I ask nothing more of life than that, Adela." "Nor do I, dear Seymour." That evening Miss Van Tuyn learnt through the telephone from Lady Sellingworth what had happened in Dick Garstin's studio during the previous night.
"Shall we go along by the river?" She hesitated. She was torn by conflicting feelings. She was very angry with Garstin. She still continued to say, though now to herself, "I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" And yet she knew that Garstin's portrait had greatly increased her strange fear of Arabian. "This way will take us to the river."
"I don't believe it," she repeated slowly. All that she had sometimes fancied, almost dimly, and feared about Arabian was expressed in Garstin's portrait of him. The man was magnificent on the canvas, but he was horrible. Evil seemed to be subtly expressed all over him. That was what she felt. It looked out of his large brown eyes. But that was not all.
Garstin gave him a strong grip. "Glad I've met you!" he said. "Beryl's done me a good turn." "Perhaps you will allow me to say though I'm no expert, and my opinion may therefore have no value in your eyes but you've painted a portrait such as one very seldom sees nowadays." "D'you mean you think it's fine?" "Very fine! Wonderful!" Garstin's usually hard face softened in an extraordinary way.
Although he had once perhaps been secretly reluctant to sit, had been tempted to become Garstin's model by the promise of the finished picture, he now seemed determined to do his part, endured Garstin's irritability, dissatisfaction, abandoned and renewed attempts to "make a first-rate job of him" with remarkable good temper.
That would be distinctly amusing. She felt on the edge of a rather uncommon adventure. On the following day, very soon after three, she pushed the bell outside Garstin's studio door in Glebe Place. It was not answered immediately, and, feeling impatient, she rang again without waiting long. Garstin opened the door, and smiled rather maliciously on seeing her. "What a hurry you're in!" he said.
Yet again she thought of the savage sitting under the palm tree and of Dick Garstin's allusion to a king in the underworld. She resented being worried. She resented having her nerves on edge. She was angry with Dick Garstin, and even angry with herself.
Nevertheless he was decidedly curious about the good-looking stranger who had been seen in Glebe Place. He had a retentive memory, and had not forgotten Dick Garstin's extraordinary remark about the blackmailer. Braybrooke was not mistaken about Craven. The information about Adela Sellingworth had renewed Craven's hot sense of injury. Braybrooke did not understand that.
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. Two days after the visit of Arabian to Dick Garstin's studio Lady Sellingworth received a note from Francis Braybrooke, who invited her to dine with him at the Carlton on the following evening, and to visit a theatre afterwards.
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