"Give it up," growled Logan, "give it up. Paint her portrait and let her go. You are a born painter. To a painter women are either paintable or nothing. For God's sake don't go losing yourself in philosophy." "It is not philosophy!" cried Mendel indignantly. "It is what I feel." "It will probably end in a damned good picture," retorted Logan. "Why not be content with that?" "Because it will not answer what I want to know, and because I feel that there is something in the Jews, the real Jews, that she does not understand either. And she is not a fool. She has a mind. She has a deep character. She is strong, and she can get the better of me. She is secret and she is cruel." Logan gave his fat chuckle. "She is just an English girl with all the raw feeling bred out of her. She is true to type: impulsive without being sensual, kind without being affectionate; and she would let you or any man go to hell rather than give up anything she has been brought up to believe in or admit to her life anything that was strange, unfamiliar, and not good form, like yourself. . . . Give it up, give it up. You are only taking it seriously because you have been irresistible so far and it is the first setback you have received." "I will not give it up," said Mendel, setting his teeth. Then he laughed because the lights had gone up and the scene was gay and amusing, and he wanted to plunge into the merry crowd of Parisians and pleasure-seekers, to move among them and to come in contact with the women, to watch the men strutting to please them, to delight in the procession of excited faces, to taste the flavour of humanity which is always and everywhere the same, rich, astonishing, comforting, satisfying in its variety. Oliver and Thompson returned with their hands full of trinkets, toys, and pretty paper decorations which they had bought or won at games of chance and skill. She sat on Logan's knee and insisted on wreathing him with paper streamers, which he removed as fast as she placed them on his head. "Do! do!" she cried. "Do let go for once and let us all be gay. Oh! I do love this place, with the band playing, and the lights in the water, and the wonderful deep blue sky. Why don't we have a sky like that in London? Do let us come here every year for the summer. Thompson says painters have to come to Paris if they want to be any good." "I've been telling her about Van Gogh," said Thompson. "So that's what's gone to your head!" growled Logan, patting her cheek. "He's been talking to you about painting, has he?" "Yes. He's is a nice man, and doesn't treat me as if I was a perfect fool."