December Love Part 42

The painter went over to an old Spanish cabinet and rummaged for a box of cigarettes, with his horsey-looking back turned towards her.

"Did he?" she repeated. "Can't you tell me what happened when you spoke to him? Why force me to cross-examine you in this indelicate way?"

"Here you are!" said Garstin, turning round with a box of cigarettes.

"Thank you."

"I gave him my name."

"He knew it, of course?"

"He didn't say so. There was no celebrity-start of pleasure. I had to explain that I occasionally painted portraits and that I wished to make a study of his d.a.m.ned remarkable head. Upon that he handed me his card.

Here it is."

And Garstin drew out of a side pocket a visiting-card, which he gave to Miss Van Tuyn.

She read: "Nicolas Arabian."

There was no address in the corner.

"What a curious name!"

She sat gazing at the card and smoking her cigarette.

"Do you know where he is staying?"

"No."

"Did you speak English to him?"

"I did."

"And he spoke good English?"

"Yes, with a foreign accent of some kind."

At this moment an electric bell sounded below.

"There he is!" said Miss Van Tuyn, quickly giving back the card to Garstin, who dropped it into his pocket. "Do go down quickly and let him in, or he may think it is all a hoax and go away."

The painter stood looking at her keenly, with his hands in his pockets and his strong, thin legs rather wide apart.

"Well, at any rate you're d.a.m.ned unconventional!" he said. "At this moment you even look unconventional. What are your eyes shining about?"

"d.i.c.k--do go!"

She laid a hand on his arm. There was a strong grip in her fingers.

"This is a little adventure. And I love an adventure," she said.

"I only hope it ends badly," said Garstin, as he turned towards the staircase. "He's more patient than you. He hasn't rung twice."

"I believe he's gone away," she said, almost angrily as he disappeared down the stairs.

She got up. There was a grand piano in the studio at the far end. She moved as if she were going towards it, then returned and went to the head of the stairs. She heard the front door open and listened. d.i.c.k Garstin's big ba.s.s voice said in an offhand tone:

"Halloh! Thought you weren't coming! Glad to see you. Come along in!"

"I know I am late," said a warm voice--the voice of a man. "For me this place has been rather difficult to find. I am not well acquainted with the painters' quarter of London."

A door banged heavily. Then Miss Van Tuyn heard steps, and again the warm voice saying:

"I see you do caricatures. Or are these not by you?"

"Every one of them!" said Garstin. "Except that. That's a copy I made of one of Leonardo's horrors. It's fine. It's a thing to live with."

"Leonardo--ah, yes!" said the voice.

"I wonder if that man has ever heard of Leonardo?" was Miss Van Tuyn's thought just then.

"Up those stairs right ahead of you," said Garstin.

Miss Van Tuyn quickly drew back and sat down again on the sofa. An instant after she had done so the living bronze appeared at the top of the stairs, and his big brown eyes rested on her. No expression either of surprise, or of anything else, came into his face as he saw her.

And she realized immediately that whatever else this man was he was supremely self-possessed. Yet he had turned away from her shilling. Why was that? In that moment she began to wonder about him. He stood still, waiting for Garstin to join him. As he did this he looked formal but amazingly handsome, though there were some lines about his eyes which she had not noticed in the Cafe Royal. He was dressed in a dark town suit and wore a big double-breasted overcoat. He was holding a black bowler hat, a pair of thick white gloves and a silver-topped stick. As Garstin joined him, Miss Van Tuyn slowly got up from her sofa.

"A friend of mine--Beryl Van Tuyn," said Garstin. "Come to have a look round at what I'm up to." (He glanced at Miss Van Tuyn.) "Mr. Arabian,"

he added. "Take off your coat, won't you? Throw it anywhere."

Arabian bowed to Miss Van Tuyn, still looking formal and as if she were a total stranger whom he had never set eyes on before. She bowed to him. As she did so she thought that he was a little older than she had supposed. He was certainly over thirty. She wondered about his nationality and suspected that very mixed blood ran in his veins.

Somehow, in spite of his quite extraordinary good looks, she felt almost certain that he was not a pure type of any nation. In her mind she dubbed him on the spot "a marvellous mongrel."

He obeyed Garstin's suggestion, took off his coat, and laid it with his hat, gloves and stick on a chair close to the staircase. Then for the first time he spoke to Miss Van Tuyn, who was still standing.

"I always love a studio, mademoiselle," he said, "and when Mr. d.i.c.k Garstin"--he p.r.o.nounced the name with careful clearness--"was good enough to invite me to his I was very thankful. His pictures are famous."

"You've been getting me up," said Garstin bluntly. "Reading 'Who's Who'!"

Arabian raised his eyebrows.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Don't be absurd and put on false modesty, d.i.c.k," said Miss Van Tuyn.

"As if you weren't known to everyone!"

It was the first time she had spoken in Arabian's hearing since the episode in Shaftesbury Avenue, and, as she uttered her first words, she thought she detected a faint and fleeting look of surprise--it was like a mental start made visible--slip over his face, like a ray of pale light slipping over a surface. Immediately afterwards a keen expression came into his eyes, and he looked rather more self-possessed than before, rather harder even.

"Everyone, of course, knows your name, Mr. d.i.c.k Garstin, as mademoiselle says."

"Right you are!" said Garstin gruffly. "Glad to hear it!"