December Love Part 55

At that moment she thought of Craven, and in her mind quickly compared the two men.

"But still you're afraid of him. Where is your frankness? Why don't you acknowledge what I already know?"

Miss Van Tuyn looked down and sat for a moment quite still without speaking. Then she began to take off her gloves. Finally, she lifted her hands to her head, took off her hat, and laid it on the divan beside her.

"It isn't that I am afraid of Arabian," she then said, at last looking up. "But the fact is I am like you. I don't understand him. I can't place him. I don't even know what his nationality is. He knows n.o.body I do. I feel certain of that. Yet he must belong somewhere, have some set of friends, some circle of acquaintances, I suppose. He isn't at all vulgar. One couldn't call him genteel, which is worse, I think. It's all very odd. I'm not conventional. In Paris I'm considered even terribly unconventional. I've met all sorts of men, but I've never met a man like Arabian. But the other day--don't you remember?--you summed him up. You said he had no education, no knowledge, no love of art or literature, that he was clever, sensual, idle, acquisitive, made of iron, with nerves of steel. Don't you remember?"

"To be sure I do."

"Isn't that enough to go upon?"

"For the painting? No, it isn't. Besides, you said you weren't sure I was right in my diagnosis of the chap's character and physical part."

"I wasn't sure, and I'm not sure now."

"Tell me G.o.d's own truth, Beryl. Come on!"

He came up to her, put one hand on her left shoulder, and looked down into her eyes.

"Aren't you a bit afraid of the fellow?"

She met his eyes steadily.

"There's something--" She paused.

"Go ahead, I tell you!"

"I couldn't describe it. It's more like an atmosphere than anything else. It seems to hang about him. I've never felt anything quite like it when I've been with anyone else."

"An atmosphere! Now we're getting at it."

He took his heavy hand away from her shoulder.

"A woman feels that sort of thing more sensitively than a man does. s.e.x!

Go on! What about it?"

"But I scarcely know what I mean--really, d.i.c.k. No! But it's--it's an unsafe atmosphere."

"Ah!"

"One doesn't know where one is in it. At least, I don't. Once in London I was lost for a little while in Regents Park in a fog. It's--it's something like that. I couldn't see the way, and I heard steps and voices that sounded strange and--I don't know."

"Find out!"

"That's all very well. You are terribly selfish, d.i.c.k. You don't care what happens so long as you can paint as you wish to paint. You'd sacrifice me, anyone--"

The girl seemed strangely uneasy. Her usual coolness had left her. The hot blood had come back to her cheeks and glowed there in uneven patches of red. Garstin gazed at her with profound and cruel interest.

"Sacrifice!" he said. "Who talked of sacrificing you? Who wishes to sacrifice you? I only want--"

"One doesn't know--with a man like that one doesn't know where it would lead to."

"Then you think he's a thundering blackguard? And yet you defended him just now, said perhaps I couldn't paint him just because I'd made up my mind he was a brute. You're a ma.s.s of contradictions."

"I don't say he's bad. He may not be bad."

"Fact is, as I said, you're in a mortal funk of him."

"I am not!" she said, with sudden anger. "No one shall say I'm afraid of any man. You can ask anyone who knows me really well, and you will always hear the same story. I'm afraid of no one and nothing, and I've proved it again and again."

"Well then, what's to prevent you proving it to me, my girl?"

"I will!"

She lifted her chin and looked suddenly impudent.

"What do you wish me to do to prove it?" she asked him defiantly.

"If Arabian does come to-day go away with him when he goes. Get to know him really. You could, I believe. But ever since he's come here to sit he has shut up the box which contains the truth of what he is, locked it, and lost the key. His face is a mask, and I don't paint masks."

"Very well. I will."

"Good!" said Garstin sonorously, and looking suddenly much less tired and morose.

"But why do you think _I_ could get to know him?"

"Because he's--but you know why better than I do."

"I don't."

"Arabian's in love with you, my girl. By Jove! There he is!"

The bell had sounded below.

With a swift movement Garstin got hold of a palette knife, sprang at the sketch of Arabian, and ripped up the canvas from top to bottom. Miss Van Tuyn uttered a cry.

"d.i.c.k!"

"That's all right!"

He threw the knife down.

"We'll do better than that by a long way."

He got hold of her hand.

"Stick to your word, my girl, and I'll paint you yet--and not an Academy portrait. But you've got to _live_. Just now, with your cheeks all in patches you looked stunning."