Artists -- Juvenile fiction; France -- Juvenile fiction; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile fiction; Young women -- Juvenile fiction
“What, what? That so?” Mr. Carruthers had been the ideal model,
absolutely unconscious of Cynthia’s flying pencil. It seemed only fair,
however, to show him the drawing when it was finished.
“And this is my roommate. Look, Stasia, I got her last night when she
was dancing with the Hungarian.”
Stasia murmured, “wish I could draw like that.” Mr. Carruthers, too,
seemed impressed. “Good work, young lady,” he nodded. But Cynthia
felt he wouldn’t have much use for artists. He would have all the
conventional ideas about them; temperament and talk and starving in
garrets.
Stasia was turning the leaves slowly, making here and there a comment,
Mr. Carruthers looking over her shoulder till he stopped her with a
large forefinger suddenly on one page.
“Who is this? Where did you sketch him?” he asked.
Cynthia leaned across the table. “Oh, that man? Isn’t it a wicked face?
I wish you could have seen ...”
But Mr. Carruthers was impatient. He took the book from Stasia. “Tell
me about this. When did you sketch this? Last night? And what was this,
part of the costume? Make-up?”
“No,” Cynthia laughed, “it was a bad scar, a fairly new one for it was
still pink and raw-looking. I think he had tried to cover it with that
harlequin ruff, but when he grew warm he forgot about it, and pushed
the ruff away from his face.”
Mr. Carruthers had already pushed the little electric bell with an
insistent finger. Before the hurrying steward had reached the table,
Mr. Carruthers barked, “Ask Captain Wain if we can see him immediately,
in his office, and tell the purser to join us there.” Then he turned to
Cynthia, “I’d like you to come along and tell the Captain what you just
told me. And may we borrow your sketch book for an hour or two?”
Puzzled and excited, Cynthia followed Stasia and her father out of
the lounge, down the corridor towards the captain’s office. Captain
Wain was a plump little man with a ruddy complexion that had weathered
many storms, white walrus whiskers, and a blue uniform with lots
of glittering buttons. Behind him stood the purser whom Cynthia
already knew, a lean, hatchet-faced man, with small sharp eyes and an
apologetic manner.
Mr. Carruthers held the door for the two girls, then closed it firmly
behind him and plunged immediately into his subject.
“It’s this matter of Goncourt,” he stated, and opened Cynthia’s
sketchbook where his thumb had been keeping the place. “I want you two
to see this.”
The Captain leaned to look at the portrait of the man in the ruff, and
passed it to the purser with no comment save a brief “Mmumph!”
The purser examined it somewhat longer. “Miss Wanstead made this?” he
asked.
Cynthia, bewildered, explained when and where she had made the sketch,
and questioned further, explained about the scar.
“He really had such a scar? It wasn’t grease paint, or whatever it is
you use on your face?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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