d if he does I shan't be able to do anything at it."

He went to stand in front of the sketch, which was in oils, and stared
at it with lack-lustre eyes.

"What d'you think of it?" he said at last.

Miss Van Tuyn was rather surprised by the question. Garstin was not in
the habit of asking other people's opinions about his work.

"It's rather difficult to say," she said, with some hesitation.

"That means you think it's rotten."

"No. But it isn't finished and--I don't know."

"Well, I hate it."

He turned away, sat down on a divan, and let his big knuckly hands drop
down between his knees.

"Fact is, I haven't got at the fellow's secret," he said meditatively.
"I got a first impression--"

He paused.

"I know!" said Miss Van Tuyn, deeply interested. "You told me what it
was."

"The successful blackmailer. Yes. But now I don't know. I can't make him
out. He's the hardest nut to crack I ever came across."

He moved his long lips from side to side three or four times, then
pursed them up, lifted his small eyes, which had been staring between
his feet at a Persian rug on the parquet in front of the divan, looked
at Miss Van Tuyn, who was standing before him, and said:

"That's why I sat up all night playing poker with him."

"Ah!" she said, beginning to understand

She sat down beside him, turned towards him, and said eagerly:

"You wanted to get really to know him?"

"Yes; but I didn't. The fellow's an enigma. He's bad. And that's
practically all I know about him."

He glanced with distaste at the sketch he had made.

"And it isn't enough. It isn't enough by a damned long way."

"Is he a good loser?" she asked.

"The best I ever saw. Never turned a hair, and went away looking as
fresh as a well-watered gardenia, damn him!"

"Who were the others?"

"Two Americans I've seen now and then at the Cafe Royal. I believe they
live mostly in Paris."

"Friends of his?"

"I don't think so. He said they came and sat down at his table in the
cafe and started talking. I suggested the poker. They didn't. So it
wasn't a plant."

"Perhaps he isn't bad," she said; "and perhaps that's why you can't
paint him."

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean because you have made up your mind that he is. I think you have
a fixed idea about that."

"What?"

"You have painted so many brutes, that you seek for the brute in
everyone who sits to you. If you were to paint me you'd--"

"Now, now! There you are at it again! I