Daniel Pentreath loomed over the studio, his gigantic chair, painted as starkly vermilion as Florence’s lips, a throne lifted above his mob of guests. He wore pyjamas, and his grey curls thrust themselves independently into the air; except for his unusual size, he might have been a bad boy escaped from bed. His great voice roared out from a great mouth like a cavern. Pentreath was indifferent to the fact that he had been born too late by many centuries. His behaviour was simply direct and self-indulgent. Topping his guests by his great height, he dwarfed them by his ruthless ability. “Hey!” he shot at someone, a vocal projectile. As most of his teeth were gone, he spoke in short sentences which he threw against his gums. “You gal! Keep your head still!” “He’s making a sketch of Eva,” Florence explained. “She kept well in his sight until he did. She brought on herself whatever comes.” For as he worked Pentreath muttered, and snorted, and called all women kittle cattle. “Heugh! Hard as nails--mean as the devil--vain as peacocks: all women! Ornamental, though--silly creatures! Strut like peacocks. Prancing--proud of their tail feathers. Ain’t natural: ought to leave tail feathers to the males, like the birds.” Florence and I moved cautiously to a position whence we could see Eva. She sat against the vast canvas of Pentreath’s latest study of mountains: they were menacing mountains of black rock. She was very pale. Occasionally she looked helplessly around the room. “I know all about myself,” she said. “I wish you wouldn’t do me. You’re cruel.” I thought: “Like the gods.” But if I had spoken aloud no one would have heard, for Pentreath’s bellow again shattered the room. “Pretty things--glaciers,” he remarked with a change of imagery; “cool, and quiet--full of clear colour--know where they’re goin’ and get there!” The groans from the bedroom were more insistent, rising, I made no doubt, in order to beat out Pentreath at his own game of noise. A gorgeous youth came up to Florence, his Greek profile magnificently the only classic in the room. “Florence dear--do you mind?--I’m afraid that this time Barney will truly do something desperate.” Florence said waspishly: “Do I have to take care of everyone who’s incapable of taking care of themselves?” She pulled aside the curtain shrouding the bedroom door, and out gushed the lamentations of Barney. Over her splendid shoulder, she grimaced for my benefit. “I take it they’ve had one of their quarrels,” she remarked; and went inside. The Greek profile rested picturesquely against the door jamb; its owner said to me that he was afraid the trouble was Barney’s disapproval of one of the boys.