ect.

Soon afterwards Arabian got up and said he must go. As he said this he
looked pleadingly at Miss Van Tuyn. But she sat still in her chair, a
cigarette between her lips. He said "good-bye" to her formally. Garstin
went down with Arabian to let him out, and was away for three or four
minutes. From her chair Miss Van Tuyn heard a murmur of voices, then
presently a loud bass: "To-morrow morning at eleven sharp," then the
bang of a door. A minute later Garstin bounded up the stairs heavily,
yet with a strong agility.

"I've got him, my girl! He's afraid of it like the devil, but I've got
him. I hit on the only way. I found the only bait which my fish would
take. Now for another cigar."

He seized the box.

"Did you see his eyes when I said I'd give him the picture?"

"No; I was looking at you."

"Then you missed revelation. I had diagnosed him all right."

"Tell me your diagnosis."

"I told it you long ago. That fellow is a being of the underworld."

Miss Van Tuyn slightly reddened.

"I wonder!" she said. "I'm not at all sure that you're right, Dick."

"What did you gather when I put him through his paces just now?" he
asked, sending out clouds of strong-smelling smoke.

"Oh, I don't know! Not very much. He seems to have been about, to have
plenty of money."

"And no education. He doesn't know a thing about pictures, painters.
Just at first I thought he might have been a model. Not a bit of
it! Books mean nothing to him. What that chap has studied is the
pornographic book of life, my girl. He has no imagination. His feeling
runs straight in the direction of sensuality. He's as ignorant and as
clever as they're made. He's never done a stroke of honest work in his
life, and despises all those who are fools enough to toil, me among
them. He is as acquisitive as a monkey and a magpie rolled into one.
His constitution is made of iron, and I dare say his nerves are made
of steel. He's a rare one, I tell you, and I'll make a rare picture of
him."

"I don't know whether you are right, Dick."

Garstin seemed quite unaffected by her doubt of his power to read
character. Perhaps at that moment he was coolly reading hers, and
laughing to himself about women. But if so, he did not show it. And she
said in a moment:

"You are really going to give him the portrait?"

"Yes, when I've exhibited it. Not before, of course. The gentleman isn't
going to have it all his own way."

Miss Van Tuyn looked rather thoughtf