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"But why do you think I could get to know him?" "Because he's but you know why better than I do." "I don't." "Arabian's in love with you, my girl. By Jove! There he is!" The bell had sounded below. With a swift movement Garstin got hold of a palette knife, sprang at the sketch of Arabian, and ripped up the canvas from top to bottom. Miss Van Tuyn uttered a cry. "Dick!" "That's all right!"
Then he must wait, cursing perhaps, damning his own impotence, dreading its continuance. But there is nothing else to be done. Pazienza! And he had enlarged upon patience. And Arabian had listened politely, had looked as if he were trying to understand. "I'll try again!" Garstin had said. "You must give me time, my boy. You're not in a hurry to leave London, are you?"
From that door thirty feet of gun-metal rungs let in to the outside of the lighthouse lead down to the set-off, which is a granite rim less than a yard wide, and unprotected by any rail. They shouted downwards from the doorway, and received no answer. They descended to the set-off, and again no Garstin, not even his cap. He was not.
He was still more surprised when the other proceeded to prove by figures that that answer was incontestably incorrect. This was the beginning. Garstin quickly found more questions to put on other points, more criticisms of Trevannion's replies. The latter at first made desperate efforts to crush him by assuming the calm superiority of the older hand.
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.
"Certainly it is. I shall take that picture away." "But Dick Garstin intends to exhibit it. I know that. I know he will not let you have it till it has been shown." "What is the law in England that one man should paint a wicked portrait of another man and that this other should be helpless to prevent it from being shown to all the world? Is that just?" "No, I don't think it is."
She was startled by his tone and also by what he had said. She glanced at him, then looked away and across the dark river. Dead leaves brushed against her feet with a dry, brittle noise. "What is that you say, please?" "I only I thought it was arranged that the picture was to be exhibited," she said, falteringly. "Oh, no. I shall not permit Dick Garstin to exhibit that picture."
No longer in Rose Tree Gardens if Sir Seymour knew anything of men. "The morning boat to Paris, and the underworld!" Sir Seymour muttered to himself. "Not much to look at now, is it?" said Garstin's voice behind him. He turned round quickly. Garstin was gazing at his ruined masterpiece with a curious twisted smile. "What can one say?" said Sir Seymour.
Miss Van Tuyn suppressed a smile at the absurd and hackneyed phrase, which reminded her of picture papers. For a moment she thought of Dick Garstin as a sort of inverted snob.
Arabian was before her eyes, standing there by the opening door, and Garstin's portrait was before the eyes of her mind in all its magnificent depravation. Which showed the real man and which the unreal? Garstin said that he had painted her intuition about Arabian, that she knew Arabian's secret and had conveyed it to him. Was that true? "Please!" said Arabian, holding open the door.
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