December Love Part 65

"You can't deceive me, Beryl."

"Your pose of omniscience bores me. Apart from your gift you're a very ordinary man, d.i.c.k, if you could only be brought to see it."

"Arabian fascinates you."

"He doesn't."

"And that's why you're afraid of him. You're afraid of his power because you don't trust him. He's doing a lot for you. You're waking up. You're becoming interesting. A few days ago you were only a beautiful spoilt American girl, as cool and as hard as ice, brainy, vain, and totally without temperament as far as one could see. Your torch was unlit. Now this blackguard's put the match to it."

"What nonsense, d.i.c.k!"

"Raoul!"

"M'sieu?"

"That's all very well. But my intention is to paint him, not you. Why don't you get to work hard? Why don't you put your back into it?"

"This is beyond bearing, d.i.c.k, even from you!"

She was looking really indignant. Her cheeks and forehead had reddened, her eyes seemed to spit fire at him, and her hands trembled.

"Your absolute lack of decent consideration is--you're canaille! Because you're impotent to paint I am to--no, it's too much! Canaille! Canaille!

That's what you are! I shall go back to Paris. I shall--"

Suddenly she stopped speaking and stared. The red faded out of her face.

A curiously conscious and intent look came into her eyes. She began to move her head as if in recognition of some one, stopped and sat rigid, pressing her lips together till her mouth had a hard grim line. Garstin, who could only see her and the wall at her back, watched all this with sharp interest, then, growing curious, turned round. As he did so he saw a tall, very handsome dark girl, who had certainly not been in the room when he entered it, going slowly, and as if reluctantly, towards the doorway. She was obviously a woman of the demi-monde and probably French. As she reached the door she turned her smart, impudent head and covered Miss Van Tuyn with an appraising look, cold, keen, vicious in its detached intensity, a look such as only a woman can send to another woman.

Then she went out, followed by Raoul, who seemed rather agitated, and whose back looked appealing.

"Black hair with blue lights in it!" said Garstin. "What a beauty!"

Miss Van Tuyn sighed.

"Why wouldn't she stay?"

He was still sitting half turned towards the door.

"A table with flowers all ready for her! And she goes! Was she alone?

Ah--who was with her?"

"Arabian!" said Miss Van Tuyn, coldly.

"And he--"

"He saw us!"

"And took her away! What a lark! Too timid to face us! The naughty boy caught out in an escapade! I'll chaff him to-morrow. All their dinner wasted, and I'll bet it was a good one."

He chuckled over his wine.

"Did he know that you saw him?"

"I don't know. He was behind her. He barely showed himself, saw us and vanished. He must have called to her, beckoned from the hall. She went quite up to the table."

"So--you've taught him timidity! He doesn't want you to know of his under life."

"Oh, for heaven's sake let us talk of something else!" said Miss Van Tuyn, with an almost pa.s.sionate note of exasperation. "You bore me, bore me, bore me with this man! He seems becoming an obsession with you.

Paint him, for G.o.d's sake, and then let there be an end of him as far as we are concerned. There are lots of other men better-looking than he is.

But once you have taken an idea into your head there is no peace until you have worked it out on canvas. Genius it may be, but it's terribly tiresome to everyone about you. Paint the man--and then let him sink back into the depths!"

"Like a sea monster, eh?"

"He is horrible. I always knew it."

"Come, now! You told me--"

"It doesn't matter what I told you. He is horrible."

"What! Just because he comes out to dine with a pretty girl of a certain cla.s.s? I had no idea you were such a Puritan. Raoul!"

"M'sieu!"

Garstin was evidently enjoying himself.

"I know those women! Arabian's catching it like the devil in Conduit Street. She's giving him something he'll remember."

"No!" said Miss Van Tuyn, with hard emphasis.

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean that Arabian is the sort of man who can frighten women. Now if you don't talk of something else I shall leave you here alone. Another word on that subject and I go!"

"Tell me, Beryl. What do you really think of Wyndham Lewis? You know his portrait of Ezra Pound?"

"Of course I do."

"Don't you think it's a masterpiece?"

"Do you? I can never get at your real ideas about modern painting."

"And I thought I wore them all down in my own pictures."

"You certainly don't sit on the fence when you paint."

And then they talked pictures. Perhaps Garstin at that moment for once laid himself out to be charming. He could fascinate Miss Van Tuyn's mind when he chose. She respected his brain. It could lure her. As a worker she secretly almost loved Garstin, and she believed that the world would remember him when he was gone to the shadows and the dust.

Two champagne bottles had been emptied when they got up to go. The little room was deserted and had a look of being settled in for the night. Raoul took his tip and yawned behind his big yellow hand. As Miss Van Tuyn was about to leave the restaurant he bent down to the floor and picked up a paper which had fallen against the wall near her seat.

"Madame--" he began.