Mrs. Moncrieff gave a little cry. "Oh, what a pity!" Her husband went on calmly with his story to Pusey. It struck Santley as odd that he should not ask what was amiss, for Lavinia sat pushing the cable into her petit point evening bag with a worried frown. But she too, said nothing more. Then, turning, she caught sight of Santley, who was alone at the moment. She signed to him to come to their table. Pulling out a chair, Santley found himself laughing heartily at some of her quips. Lavinia always had the art of quickening the tempo. She excited always, if only to more sparkling talk.
He threw in the suggestion that, since he was coming down next week about the tableaux, it might be possible to arrange some sittings for the long overdue portrait of Moncrieff. Both husband and wife seemed charmed.
Pusey with a light word left them. Santley had a feeling that he was annoyed at his joining the table, or was it at something said by the smiling Moncrieff? Moncrieff's smile showed two magnificent rows of teeth, but it looked rather formidable. Not the face of a man to lightly pay over notes on a park bench...
Mrs. Moncrieff was begging him to come down before the Thursday. Any time after next Tuesday—that was a week from to-day—would suit her and her husband admirably. But Santley explained that he was just off for Brussels, to inspect some tapestry intended for a Belgian church which was being woven there according to one of his designs. He was crossing by air next morning, and would not be back until the Wednesday of next week.
"Brussels!" Lavinia suddenly looked across at her husband, a question in her eyes. Santley, without turning in his seat, could not see if Moncrieff gave an answering glance.
"Ah, well!" Lavinia seemed to bear up, "if you can't come earlier, why, you can't! Perhaps you can stay on? We should be delighted to have you, and what with the rehearsals and flying around to get things together, I'm afraid there won't be much time for sittings until the 'doings' are over. Everything finishes on Saturday, thank Heaven. Harry will have to be on his best behaviour while you're there so as to make a good impression. That's half the battle when you're having your picture painted, isn't it?"
"It's not half so important as the impression I make on him," Santley explained. "What you see on a canvas is not so much what the painter thinks of the sitter, as what the sitter thinks of the artist."
"Is that why most of them look so glum?" Moncrieff asked, in his rather harsh voice, but he had a taking laugh.
"What are you going to put in the background?" Lavinia went on. "I loved the hunting picture you hung on the wall of Lord Marchmont's room in your picture of him. It was such a contrast to his wig and gown, and yet—it explained his eyes."
Santley thought of his aunt's suggestion about a park bench. He said instead: "I should say something swift and dangerous would suit you best. How about a car, a racer?" He spoke to Moncrieff himself.
Just for a second a startled look crossed Moncrieff's face, with its beak-like nose, formidable jaw, large bold black eyes, and wide, broad lips, tightly pressed together most of the time. He said nothing.
"Why not a ray of light?" Lavinia put in hurriedly. "Surely that's the swiftest thing there is."
"And can be extremely dangerous too, when it falls on something you want kept dark," Moncrieff added, with his deep-throated laugh.
Santley was conscious of something below the surface in that sound—of an inner as well as an outer laugh.
"Not so quick as thought," he said now, looking full at the other.
Moncrieff returned the look with the effect of pricking up his ears.
"How would you paint a thought?" he asked with apparently real interest. "What symbol would you use?" His grin, a pleasant grin, said that he had the other beat there.
"A corkscrew,"—began Santley gropingly. He got no further. The word was to be an adjective, but explanations were drowned in the burst of laughter. The talk went on. Santley's friend had drifted out with some relations who had turned up unexpectedly, and Santley, for the moment, remained attached to the Moncrieffs. He was studying the Major. Those eyes of his, for instance, Santley had no idea how he would paint them, paint what, to his mind, lay behind them, except that he must render an impression of a remarkably strong will. In some ways...not all. Whatever this man wanted to do, he would want tremendously...But rather blindly, Santley thought. He doubted if Moncrieff would care for his picture. There was nothing subtle here. Therefore anything subtle would be beyond the man, and Santley's portraits were always illusive, suggestive. On the whole, the artist was disappointed. From Mrs. Phillimore's terrible words, from the strange incident in the park, he had, illogically, expected something very complex, deep...hidden. But Santley caught no glimpse of this. He saw Moncrieff as a fighter born. A man who would be at his best facing overwhelming physical odds...
"About Brussels," Lavinia suddenly broke in, giving Santley an impression of speaking with care. "Do you know it well?"
He explained that he had had to run over a good many times lately, as there was some trouble in carrying out his colours.
"I'm getting quite chummy with the douaniers," he went on. "At first they used to unpack my little bag of coloured wools with tremendous care. Now that they know I'm designing something for one of their own churches, they're awfully obliging. But then Belgians are, when you know them—and they know you. At least the Walloons are."
Lavinia had been listening with most flattering attention. Now she jumped up with a quick cry of greeting to some one who had just entered and was passing near them. It was her mother. Mrs. Phillimore was with some friends, but she hurried across to sit for a moment on a chair which her son-in-law drew out for her with every appearance of solicitude. He began talking to her too, with really noticeable devotion, but she promptly turned a shoulder toward him and spoke to her daughter.
"I've been trying to get you on the 'phone all day, to explain that I shan't be able to return to Beechcroft for weeks and weeks. In fact, to be blunt, dear child, I shall be due for my visit to Scotland to the Mackenzies before the dentist has finished with me."
Sounds of grief and disappointment came from both Moncrieffs. They looked crushed. Genuinely so, any one would say, who had not heard what Mrs. Phillimore had told Santley only that morning.
"But I wondered," Mrs. Phillimore went on, "whether you would let me send an old friend of yours down to stay with you, who needs quiet and rest after an attack of 'flu."
Santley realised that he was watching Mrs. Phillimore going into action, and felt amused.
"Certainly! Charmed, mother!" came from Lavinia.
"We can have her, or him, or them, any time after to-morrow week," the Major said with what sounded like warm hospitality.
"Why not till then?" asked Mrs. Phillimore with a sharp ring in her voice.
"The drains have gone wrong," Lavinia said promptly. "Didn't I tell you this morning? Ah, you rushed off before I could. Yes, it'll be to-morrow week before everything's in order again. But who is the old friend?"
"You know her quite well. She adores you...oh, here she is!"
Mrs. Phillimore would make a good stage-manageress, Santley thought, as she sprang up with every appearance of pleased surprise as a tall, slender young woman came in with a group of young people. Yes, it was Flavelle Bruton, but Mrs. Phillimore was right, she had changed, Santley thought, looking at her—changed enormously. A certain dreamy, hesitating something that used to envelop her was gone. This face was both hard and cold. She had painted her skin, which he remembered as a warm ivory, to a dead matt white, her mouth to a pillar-box scarlet. She had plucked her thick eyebrows to slender half-moons, and put purple shadows under those strange eyes of hers. Even the way her hair grew on her forehead seemed to have been altered. But there was no denying that the effect was striking. In the old days, few people in that smart gathering would have given her one glance. Now people looked many times. She was beautifully dressed, Santley thought, in something black that gleamed with gold threads as she moved. It was swathed