or two or three minutes. Her mind had gone
from Lady Sellingworth to Craven, and then flitted on--she did not know
why--to the man who had gazed at her so strangely in the Cafe Royal. She
had been feeling rather neglected, badly treated almost, and his look
had restored her to her normal supreme self-confidence. That fact would
always be to the stranger's credit. She wondered very much who he was.
His good looks had almost startled her. She began also to wonder what
Garstin had thought of him. Garstin seldom painted men. But he did so
now and then. Two of his finest portraits were of men: one a Breton
fisherman who looked like an apache of the sea, the other a Spanish
bullfighter dressed in his Sunday clothes with the book of the Mass
in his hand. Miss Van Tuyn had seen them both. She now found herself
wishing that Garstin would paint a portrait of the man who had looked
at her. But was he a Cafe Royal type? At present Garstin painted nothing
which did not come out of the Cafe Royal.

"That man--" she said abruptly.

"I was just wondering when we should get to him!" interjected Garstin.
"I thought your old dowager wouldn't keep us away from him for long."

"I suppose you know by this time, Dick, that I don't care in the least
what you think of me."

"The only reason I bother about you is because you are a thoroughly
independent cuss and have a damned fine head."

"Why don't you paint me?"

"I may come to it. But if I do I'm mortally afraid they'll make an
academician of me. Go on about your man."

"Didn't you think him a wonderful type?"

"Yes."

"Tell me! If you want to paint someone, what do you do?"

"Do? Go up and tell him or her to come along to the studio."

"Whether you know them or not?"

"Of course."

"You ought to paint that man."

"Just because you want me to pick hum up and then introduce him to you.
I don't paint for reasons of that kind."

"Have you ever seen him before to-night?"

"Yes. I saw him last night."

"For the first time?"

"Yes."

"At the Cafe Royal?"

"Yes."

"What do you think he is?"

"Probably a successful blackmailer."

For some obscure reason Miss Van Tuyn felt outraged by this opinion of
Garstin.

"The fact is," she said, but in quite an impersonal voice, "that your
mind is getting warped by living always among the scum of London, and
by studying and painting only the scum. It really is a great pity. A
painter ought to be a man of the world, not a man of