know. If it weren't for your
painting no one would have anything to do with you."

"I shouldn't care."

"Yes, you would. You love being worshipped and run after."

"Good soup, isn't it?"

She made no answer to this. After a silence she said:

"Why were you so late?"

"To give you time to study the evening paper."

"Were you working?"

"No--cursing."

"Why?"

"This damned portrait's going to be no good either!"

"Then you'd better give it up."

He shot a piercing glance at her.

"It isn't my way to give things up once I've put my hand to them," he
observed drily. "And you seem to forget that you put me up to it."

"That was only a whim. You didn't take it seriously."

"I do now, though."

"But if you're baffled?"

"For the moment. I've nearly always found that the best work comes
hardest. One has to sweat blood before one reaches the big thing. I
may begin on him half a dozen times, cut him to ribbons half a dozen
time--and then do a masterpiece."

"I don't think he'll wait long enough. Another stab of the palette knife
and you'll probably see the last of him."

"Ah--he didn't like it, did he?"

"He was furious."

"Did he say anything about it afterwards to you?"

"Not a word. But he was furious. You stabbed money!"

Garstin smiled appreciatively. Raoul was pouring out the champagne.
Garstin lifted his glass and set it down half empty.

"Had you told him--"

He paused.

"He knows everything you do is worth money, a lot of money."

"He's got the hairy heel. I always knew that. We'll get to his secret
yet, you and I between us."

"I am not sure that I can stay over here very much longer, Dick. Paris
is my home, and I can't waste my money at Claridge's for ever."

"If you like I'll pay the bill."

She reddened.

"Do you really think that if I were to go he--Arabian--"

"He'd follow you by the next boat."

"I'm sure he wouldn't."

"You're not half so vain as I thought you were."

"When we are alone he never attempts to make love to me. We talk
platitudes. I know him no better than I did before."

"He's a wary bird. But the dawn must come and with it his crow."

"Well, Dick, I tell you frankly that I may go back to Paris any day."

"I knew you were nervy to-night. I wish I could find a woman who was a
match for a man in the nervous system. But there isn't one. That's why
we are so superior. We've got steel where you've all got fiddle strings.
Raoul!"

He drank again and a