lips, till the upper lip was
pressed against the bottom of his beaked nose.

"Are you going to allow me to paint you?" he said. "That's what
I'm after. I should like to do a head and bust of you. I could make
something of it--something--yes!"

He still stared with concentrated attention, and suddenly a faint
whistle came from his lips. Without removing his eyes from Arabian he
whistled several times a little tune of five notes, like the song of a
thrush. Arabian meanwhile returned his gaze rather doubtfully, slightly
smiling.

"Ever been painted?" said Garstin at last.

"No, never. Once I have sat to a sculptor for the figure. But that was
when I was very young. I was something of an athlete as a boy."

"I should say so," said Garstin. "Well, what do you think, eh?"

Miss Van Tuyn had sat down on the sofa again, and was lighting another
cigarette. She looked at the two men with interest. She now knew that
what Garstin had done he had really done for himself, not for her. As
he had said, he did not paint for the pleasure of others, but only for
reasons of his own. Apparently he would never gratify her vanity. But
he gratified something else in her, her genuine love of talent and the
ruthlessness of talent. There was really something of the great man in
Garstin, and she appreciated it. She admired him more than she liked
him. Even in her frequent irritation against him she knew what he
genuinely was. At this moment something in her was sharply disappointed.
But something else in her was curiously satisfied.

In reply to Garstin's question Arabian asked another question.

"You wish to make a portrait of me?"

"I do--in oils."

"Will it take long?"

"I couldn't say. I might be a week over it, or less, or more. I shall
want you every day."

"And when it is done?" said Arabian. "What happens to it?"

"If it's up to the mark--my mark--I shall want to exhibit it."

Arabian said nothing for a moment. He seemed to be thinking rather
seriously, and presently his large eyes turned towards Miss Van Tuyn for
an instant, almost, she thought, as if they wished to consult her, to
read in her eyes something which might help him to a decision. She felt
that the man was flattered by Garstin's request, but she felt also that
something--she did not know what--held him back from granting it. And
again she wondered about him.

What was he? She could not divine. She looked at him and felt that she
was looking at a book not o