“Oh, _tart_, is it?” “Anything you like. Very well made, puffed out. With _one_ solitary Russian, _bien entendu_!” “And what, good God, shall we call the cow-faced specimen you spend the greater part of your days with⸺” “She, too, is German pastry, more homely than you though⸺” “Homely’s the word!” “But not quite so fly-blown. Less variegated creams and German pretentiousness⸺” “I see! And takes you more seriously than other people would be likely to! That’s what all your ‘quatch’ about ‘woman’ and ‘slave’ means. You know that!” She had recovered from the effects of the drinks completely and was sitting up and talking briskly, looking at him with the same serious, rather flattened face she had had during their argument on Art and Death. “I know you are a famous whore, who becomes rather acid in your cups!—when you showed me your legs this evening, I suppose I was meant⸺” “Assez! Assez!!” She struck the table with her fist. “Let’s get to business.” He put his hat on and leant towards her. “It’s getting late. Twenty-five francs, I’m afraid, is all I can manage.” “Twenty-five francs for what? With you—it would be robbery! Twenty-five francs to be your audience while you drivel about art? Keep your money and buy Bertha an—_efficient chimpanzee_! She will need it if she marries you!” Her mouth drawn tight and her hands in her coat pockets, she walked out of the door of the café. Tarr ordered another drink. “It’s like a moral tale told on behalf of Bertha,” he thought. That was the temper of Paradise! The morality, in pointing to Bertha, did her no good, but caused her to receive the _trop-plein_ of his discontent. He sat in a grim sulk at the thought of the good time he had lost. This scene had succeeded in touching the necessary spring. His vanity helping, for half an hour he plotted his revenge and satisfaction together. Anastasya had violently flung off the illusion of indifference in which she had hitherto appeared to him. The drinks of the evening were a culture in which his disappointment grew luxuriantly, but with a certain buffoonish lightness. He went back to his studio in half an hour’s time with smug, thick, secretive pleasure settling down on his body’s ungainly complaints. CHAPTER III He went slowly up the stairs feeling for his key. He arrived at the door without having found it. The door was ajar. At first this seemed natural to him, and he continued the search for the key. Then he suddenly dropped that occupation, pushed the door open and went into his studio. The moonlight came heavily through the windows. In a part of the room where it did not strike he became aware of an apparition of solid white. It was solid white flowed round by Naples yellow. It crossed into the moonlight and faced him, its hands placed like a modest statue’s. The hair reached below the waist, and flowed to the right from the head. This tall nudity began laughing with a harsh sound like stone laughing.