lean brown hands fall between his knees.

'Do you mind,' I said, 'if for a minute I sit still and look round?'

He understood again.

'I haven't brought much,' he said, 'I left pretty near everything in
Paris.'

'You have brought a world.' Then after a moment, 'Did you do that?' I
asked, nodding towards a canvas tacked against the wall. It was the head
of a half-veiled Arab woman turned away.

The picture was in the turning away, and the shadow the head-covering
made over the cheek and lips.

'Lord, no! That's Dagnan Bouveret. I used to take my things to him,
and one day he gave me that. You have an eye,' he added, but without
patronage. 'It's the best thing I've got.'

I felt the warmth of an old thrill.

'Once upon a time,' I said, 'I was allowed to have an eye.' The wine,
untasted all those years, went to my head. 'That's a vigorous bit
above,' I continued.

'Oh, well! It isn't really up to much, you know. It's Rosario's. He
photographs mostly, but he has a notion of colour.'

'Really?' said I, thinking with regard to my eye that the sun of that
atrocious country had put it out. 'I expect I've lost it,' I said aloud.

'Your eye? Oh, you'll easily get a fresh one. Do you go home for the
exhibitions?'

'I did once,' I confessed. 'My first leave. A kind of paralysis
overtakes one here. Last time I went for the grouse.'

He glanced at me with his light clear eyes as if for the first time he
encountered a difficulty.

'It's a magnificent country for painting,' he said.

'But not for pictures,' I rejoined. He paid no attention, staring at the
ground and twisting one end of his moustache.

'The sun on those old marble tombs--broad sun and sand--'

'You mean somewhere about Delhi.'

'I couldn't get anywhere near it.' He was not at that moment anywhere
near me. 'But I have thought out a trick or two--I mean to have another
go when it cools off again down there.' He returned with a smile, and
I saw how delicate his face was. The smile turned down with a little
gentle mockery in its lines. I had seen that particular smile only on
the faces of one or two beautiful women. It had a borrowed air upon a
man, like a tiara or an earring.

'There's plenty to paint,' he said, looking at me with an air of
friendly speculation.

'Indeed, yes. And it has never been done. We are sure it has never been
done.'

'"We"--you mean people generally?'

'Not at all. I mean Miss Harris, Miss Harris and myself.'

'Your