waved his hand to Cora,
who was on her way out with a friend.

"A free woman--by God!" he said once more, swinging round to where Miss
Van Tuyn was standing between Jennings and Thapoulos. "I'll paint her
again. I'll make a masterpiece of her."

"I'm sure you will. But now walk with me to the Hyde Park Hotel. It's on
your way to Chelsea."

"She doesn't care whether I paint her or not. Cora doesn't care. Art
means nothing to her. She's out for life, hunks of life. She's after
life like a hungry dog after the refuse on a scrap heap. That's why I'll
paint her. She's hungry. Look at her face."

Miss Van Tuyn, perhaps moved by the sudden, almost ferocious urgency
of his loud bass voice, turned to have a last look at the woman who was
"out for life"; but Cora was already lost in the crowd, and instead
of gazing into the dead-white face which suggested to her some strange
putrefaction, she gazed full into the face of a man. He was not far
off--by the doorway through which people were streaming out into Regent
Street--and he happened to be looking at her. She had been expecting to
see a whiteness which was corpse-like. Instead she was almost startled
by the sight of a skin which suggested to her one of her own precious
bronzes in Paris. It was certainly less deep in colour, but its smooth
and equal, unvarying tint of brown somehow recalled to her those
treasures which she genuinely loved and assiduously collected. And he
was marvellously handsome as some of her bronzes were handsome, with
strong, manly, finely cut features--audacious features, she thought. His
mouth specially struck her by its full-lipped audacity. He was tall and
had an athletic figure. She could not help swiftly thinking what a
curse the modern wrappings of such a figure were; the tubes of cloth
or serge--he wore blue serge--the unmeaning waistcoat with tie and
pale-blue collar above it, the double-breasted jacket. And then she
saw his eyes. Magnificent eyes, she thought them, soft, intelligent,
appealing, brown like his skin and hair. And they were gazing at her
with a sort of sympathetic intention.

Suddenly she felt oddly restored. Really she had had a bad evening.
Things had not gone quite right for her. She had saved the situation in
a measure just at the end by taking refuge in irony. But in her irony
she had been quite alone. And to be quite alone in anything is apt to
be dull. Craven had let her down. Lady Sellingworth had not played
the game--