But how was I to get at him?--One day it occurred to me to try talking to Miss Vard. She was a monosyllabic person, who didn’t seem to see an inch beyond the last remark one had made; but suddenly I found myself blurting out, “I wonder if you know how extraordinarily paintable your father is?” and you should have seen the change that came over her. Her eyes lit up and she looked--well, as I’ve tried to make her look there. (He glanced up at the sketch.) Yes, she said, _wasn’t_ her father splendid, and didn’t I think him one of the handsomest men I’d ever seen? That rather staggered me, I confess; I couldn’t think her capable of joking on such a subject, yet it seemed impossible that she should be speaking seriously. But she was. I knew it by the way she looked at Vard, who was sitting opposite, his wolfish profile thrown back, the shaggy locks tossed off his narrow high white forehead. The girl worshipped him. She went on to say how glad she was that I saw him as she did. So many artists admired only regular beauty, the stupid Greek type that was made to be done in marble; but she’d always fancied from what she’d seen of my work--she knew everything I’d done, it appeared--that I looked deeper, cared more for the way in which faces are modelled by temperament and circumstance; “and of course in that sense,” she concluded, “my father’s face _is_ beautiful.” This was even more staggering; but one couldn’t question her divine sincerity. I’m afraid my one thought was to take advantage of it; and I let her go on, perceiving that if I wanted to paint Vard all I had to do was to listen.