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. Dick
Garstin"--he pronounced 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, Dick," 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. Dick Garstin, as mademoiselle
says."

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

He now directed the two pin-points of light to the new visitor, stared
at him with almost cruel severity, and yet with a curiously inward
look, frowning and lifting his long pursed