toupet_. But"--he flung a large hand stained with pigments out in an
ugly, insolent gesture--"any one of these _fleurs du mal_ would have
jumped back from the white to the bronze age when the fit was passed,
without caring a damn what anyone thought of them. All the moral bravery
is in the underworld. That is why I paint it."

"That is absolute truth," said Jennings, who was sitting next to Dick
Garstin and smoking an enormous pipe. "The lower you go the more truth
you find."

"Then I suppose the gutter is full of it," said Miss Van Tuyn.

"The Cafe Royal is," said Garstin. "There are free women here. Your
women of society are for ever waiting on the opinion of what they call
their set--God help them! Your Lady Sellingworth, for instance--would
she dare, after showing herself as an old woman, to become a young woman
again? Not she! Her precious set would laugh at her for it. But Cora,
for instance--" He pointed to a table a little way off, at which a woman
was sitting alone. "Do you suppose Cora cares one single damn what you,
or I, or anyone else thinks of her? She knows we all know exactly what
she is, and it makes not a particle of difference to her. She'll tell
you, or anyone else, what her nature is. If you don't happen to like it,
you can go to Hell--for her. That's a free woman. Look at her face. Why,
it's great, because her life and what she is is written all over it.
I've painted her, and I'll paint her again. She's a human document, not
a sentimental Valentine. Waiter! Waiter!"

His sonorous bass rolled out, dominating the uproar around him. Miss
Van Tuyn looked at the woman he had been speaking of. She was tall,
emaciated, high shouldered. Her face was dead white, with brightly
painted lips. She had dark and widely dilated eyes which looked hungry,
observant and desperate. The steadiness of their miserable gaze was like
that of an animal. She was dressed in a perfectly cut coat and skirt
with a neat collar and a black tie. Both her elbows were on the table,
and her sharp white chin was supported by her hands, on which she wore
white gloves sewn with black. Her features were good, and the shape
of her small head was beautiful. Her expression was intense, but
abstracted. In front of her was a small tumbler half full of a liquid
the colour of water.

A waiter brought Garstin a gin-and-soda. He mixed drinks in an almost
stupefying way, as few men can without apparent ill-effects unless they
are Russians.