a stayer!" Garstin had said of him in a puffing breath one
day when the palette knife had been angrily used once more. "Either he's
waiting for the money value of a portrait by me like a cat for a mouse,
or he's afraid of the finish."

"Why?" Miss Van Tuyn had asked.

"Well, you're in the thing! Perhaps he's afraid that when he says
good-bye to my studio he says good-bye to you too. Or perhaps the
two reasons govern him--love of money, love of woman. Anyhow he's a
sticker!"

"He only wants the picture," she had said.

But that remark had been made for the benefit of Garstin. By this time
she knew that Arabian had a further purpose, and that it was connected
with herself. She was sure that he was intent on her. And she wondered
very much what he would do when at last the picture was finished. Surely
then something definite must happen. She both longed for and dreaded
that moment. She knew Garstin, and she knew that once he had achieved
what he was trying--"sweating blood," he called it--to achieve his
interest in Arabian would almost certainly cease. Arabian would then
be nothing but used material of no more value in Garstin's life. The
picture would be exhibited, and then handed over to Arabian, and Garstin
would be off on some other track.

She had now been with Arabian probably as many times as she had been
with Craven. Yet she thoroughly understood the essential qualities of
the Englishman, or believed that she did, and she still knew very little
about Arabian. She did not even know what race he belonged to. He had
evidently travelled a great deal. Sometimes he casually mentioned having
been here or there. He spoke of America as one who had often been in New
York. Once he had mentioned San Francisco as if he were very familiar
with it. Miss Van Tuyn had relatives there, and had asked him if he knew
them. But he had not known them. Whom did he know? She often wondered.
He must know somebody besides that horrible girl she had seen for a
moment in the restaurant in Conduit Street. But she did not like to ask
him direct questions. To do that would be to show too much interest in
him. And something else, too, prevented her from questioning him. She
had no faith in his word. She felt that he was a man who would say
anything which suited his purpose. She had never caught him out in a
direct lie, but she was quite certain he would not mind telling one. Of
course she had often known men about whom she knew really very
l