December Love Part 64

"Better tempered now, Beryl?"

"You always make out that I have the temper of a fiend. I hate being startled. That's all."

"You're awfully nervy these days."

"I think you are the cruellest man I 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 wors.h.i.+pped 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 d.a.m.ned 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 times--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 gla.s.s 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, d.i.c.k. 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 plat.i.tudes. 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, d.i.c.k, 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 ate heartily. He was a voracious eater at times. But there were days when he ate nothing and worked incessantly.

They had begun dinner late, and the little restaurant was getting empty.

Three sets of diners had gone out since they had sat down. The waiters were clearing some of the tables. A family party, obviously French, lingered at a round table in the middle of the room over their coffee. A pale man sat alone in a corner eating pressed duck with greedy avidity.

And Raoul, leaving Miss Van Tuyn and Garstin, placed a large vase of roses on a table close to the window near the door.

Miss Van Tuyn happened to see this action, and a vagrant thought slipped through her mind. "Then we are not the last!"

"My nerves are certainly not fiddle strings," she said. "But I have interests which pull me towards Paris."

"Greater interests here. Have some more champagne! Raoul!"

"M'sieu!"