“I want to ask you something about Lady Sellingworth,” she continued. “Come a little nearer.” Garstin shifted his chair. “But I don’t know her,” he said, rumpling his hair with an air of boredom. “An old society woman! What’s the good of that to me? What have I to do with dowagers? Bow wow dowagers! Even Rembrandt--” “Now, Dick, don’t be a bore! If you would only listen occasionally, instead of continually--” “Go ahead, young woman! And bend down a little more. Why don’t you take off your hat?” “I will.” She did so quickly, and bent her lovely head nearer to him. “That’s better. You’ve got a damned fine head. Ceres might have owned it. But classical stuff is no good to me. You ought to have been painted by Leighton and hung on the line in the precious old Royal Academy.” Again the tell-tale mark appeared above the bridge of Miss Van Tuyn’s charming nose. “I painted by a Royal Academician!” she exclaimed. “Thank you, Dick!” Garstin, who was as mischievous as a monkey, and who loved to play cat and mouse with a woman, continued to gaze at her with his assumption of fierce attention. “But Leighton being unfortunately dead, we can’t go to him for your portrait,” he continued gravely. “I think we shall have to hand you over to McEvoy. Smith!” he suddenly roared. “Well, what is it, Dick, what is it?” said the sculptor in a thin voice, with high notes which came surprisingly through the thicket of tangled hair about the cavern of his mouth. “Who shall paint Beryl as Ceres?” “I refuse to be painted by anyone as Ceres!” said Miss Van Tuyn, almost viciously. “It ought to have been Leighton. But he’s been translated. I suggested McEvoy.” “Oh, Lord! He’d take the substance out of her, make her transparent!” “I have it then! Orpen! It shall be Orpen! Then she will be hung on the line.” “You talk as if I were the week’s washing,” said Miss Van Tuyn, recovering herself. “But I would rather be on the clothes-line than on the line at the Royal Academy. No, Dick, I shall wait.” “What for, my girl?” “For you to get over your acute attack of Cafe Royal. You don’t know how they laugh at you in Paris for always painting morphinomanes and chloral drinkers. That sort of thing was done to death in France in the youth of Degas. It may be new over here. But England always lags behind in art, always follows at the heels of the French. You are too big a man--” “I’ve got it, Smith,” said Garstin, interrupting in the quiet even voice of one who had been indulging an undisturbed process of steady thought, and who now announced the definite conclusion reached. “I have it. Frank Dicksee is the man!”