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Updated: June 29, 2025
"Or rather, elderly," Garstin now said to himself, glancing sharply over his visitor's strong, lean frame and broad shoulders. "Yes, I am." The stranger opened a leather case and took out a card. "Perhaps you will kindly read that." Garstin took the card. "Beryl!" he said. "What's up?" And he read: "To introduce Sir Seymour Portman, please see him. "Are you Sir Seymour Portman?" "Yes." "Come in."
If only he were less hard, less brutally cynical, she might perhaps go to him now. For he had in his peculiar way warned her against Arabian. She flushed in the dark as she thought of Garstin's probable comments on her situation if he knew of it! And yet Garstin had told her that Arabian was in love with her. Was that possible? Her vanity faintly stirred like something, albeit feebly, reviving.
"Well?" said Garstin at last, perhaps catching her feeling. "What do you think of the thing? Are you satisfied with it? I've been a long time over it, but there it is at last." He laughed slightly, uneasily, she thought. "What's the verdict?" "One moment please!" said Arabian in an unusually soft voice.
"Work it's the thing in life!" roared Garstin. "It's the great consolation for all the damnableness of the human existence. Work first and the love of women second!" "Thank you very much for your chivalry, Dick," said Miss Van Tuyn, sending one of her most charming blue glances to the living bronze, who returned it, almost eagerly, she thought. "And the love of women betrays," continued Garstin.
That night at the restaurant in Conduit Street she had felt that she hated him, and when she had left Garstin she had realized something, that the measure of her nervous hatred was the measure of something else. Why should she mind what Arabian did? What was his way of life to her? Other men could do what they chose and her well-poised, well-disciplined brain retained its normal calm.
Craven belonged obviously to a class, although he had a strong and attractive individuality. English diplomacy presented many men of his type to the embassies in foreign countries. But to what class did Arabian belong? Even Dick Garstin was quite comprehensible, in spite of his extraordinary manners and almost violent originality. He was a Bohemian, with touches of genius, touches of vulgarity.
Somehow things seemed to be going vaguely wrong for her to-night. "I suppose I am not near enough to the gutter yet," she added. "You're too much of the out-of-door type for me," said Garstin, looking at her with almost fierce attention. "There isn't a line about you except now and then in your forehead just above the nose. And even that only comes from bad temper."
He put out a hand and took one of hers. "But it all came through you. Didn't it?" "But but you said you had never seen Dick Garstin till he came up and asked you to sit to him." "That was not true. I saw him with you that night at the Cafe Royal. That is why I came to the studio. I knew I should meet you there. And you knew." Again the terribly shrewd glance came into his eyes.
Then he came back to the sketch of Arabian. "You must help me!" he said at last. "I!" she exclaimed, with almost sharp surprise. "How can I help you?" He turned, and she saw the pin-points of light. "What do you think of the fellow?" he said. "After all, you asked me to paint him. What do you think of him?" "I think he's magnificently handsome." "Blast his envelope!" Garstin almost roared out.
There was a look in his eyes now which she did not like, a very intelligent and cruel look. She knew it well. It expressed almost blatantly the man's ruthlessness. She did not inquire what the good turn was, but raised her glass slowly and drank. "Your hand trembles, my girl!" said Garstin. "Nonsense! It does not! Now please show me the portrait. I will not wait any longer." "Here you are then!"
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