Santley as a rule refused to paint the faces of young women. He would not have refused to paint Flavelle Bruton as she stood there smiling at Lavinia, a blue light, like the light shining on a wave, in her eyes. He remembered that blue glint in her eyes when she looked at any one of whom she was fond, and how green they could seem when they looked at any one whom she disliked. Even in the old days, when she had been a plain young woman, he had thought, now and then, that a man might do strange things for the sake of Flavelle Bruton's eyes. The old days...it had been Lavinia then who had seemed to him much the more subtle of the two. He would not say so now. That white, painted face, with the heart-shaped painted mouth, and the half-moon brows were very difficult to read. It had lived, this face. His aunt would say that it had entered the booth called sorrow in life's fair, or was the booth called suffering?
Lavinia was greeting her with effusiveness. A horrid word.
"You 'phoned to me to say you were in London? My dearest thing, I never got the message! You wrote? But I haven't opened any letters for ages—we've had the most awful times with the drains—nothing but builders' estimates and sizes of pipes...darling, how delightful it will be..."
"It's all settled," Mrs. Phillimore said gaily, "you're to go down, Tuesday week, if you can manage it."
Lavinia joined in. The three women laughed and talked on, making, it must be admitted, quite a stir around them.
And to think this was quiet Flavelle Bruton, with her look of self-effacement, her manner that had always suggested diffidence, self-distrust. Well, Santley thought, success changes all of us. The curious thing about the change in Flavelle to him was, that he would not have said that happiness had had anything to do with the alteration. Quite the other way.
He made some idle remark to Moncrieff beside him. The Major did not reply. Glancing at him Santley saw that he was standing rigid, his eyes on the floor and had evidently not heard. Santley repeated the sentence. Still no reply from Moncrieff; still quite obviously, he had not heard what was said.
Santley decided that it was high time to go, but Lavinia was chattering too fast for him to get in a word. "Oh, it's a beast of a house," she was saying. "It's only the fag-end of a lease. You mustn't mind a spot or two of discomfort. You can have all the quiet you want, after Saturday, that I can promise you."
Somehow it did not sound alluring, Santley thought. But Flavelle only smiled, and said, in her voice that used to be so low and soft and was now so firm and decisive, that she was used to discomfort, that she would gladly come down for a week-end, and with that, and some more light chatter, Mrs. Phillimore and she passed on to their friends.
They left a sudden silence behind them. Santley used it to say good-bye, and went on to a place where some very good ballet dances were being given. He enjoyed the show, the strange rhythmic poses, the gorgeous garments. Rising to leave, he almost collided with Flavelle Bruton in the doorway. She was with a tall young man who instantly arrested Santley's attention. He was good-looking in what is called in books an aristocratic fashion, which has nothing to do with birth and yet has a definite meaning. His eyes met Santley's and the artist felt the power in them—power of personality, of will, of many other things. Then Flavelle turned and said a few words in Spanish to him. The man bowed, and went back into the room.
Santley apologised for having almost stepped on her.
She was quite friendly. And quite chilly. Then she glanced towards the young man who had come in with her.
"That's Don Plutarco. The name means nothing to you, of course," she said lightly. "He's the idol of Spain at the moment. A bull fighter born in Heaven, they say. At any rate, he's the leading espada. He wants to stay on and see more of this dancing. I'm tired. I'm off to bed."
"May I take you home? And if so, where?" he asked.
"I'm going back to my old studio," she said unexpectedly. "I've a fancy to sleep there to-night. Off King's Road, you know. The smelly end."
"Do you still keep it on?" he asked, as she gave more precise directions to a taxi which he called.
"I had it on a seven years' lease...I sub-let it. Make quite threepence a month profit on it!" she said lightly, but she leaned her little head back with a weary gesture. "You know those old legends about a monk caught up into Heaven for what he thought was a moment, but on his return finds was years and years, and that meanwhile an angel has taken his place on earth?" she said suddenly.
Santley said he had read many versions of it. "Why?"
"I was wondering whether the angel, when he got back to Heaven, found that he ought to've stayed on earth," Flavelle said. "It seems such a mistake—coming back to anything."
"What about your studio?" he asked, making as though to stop the driver.
She only gave a little empty laugh and told him to let the man carry on. They were at the studio almost immediately. She had the key in an envelope, or rather the two keys, and a moment later Santley stepped into a room which made him take an involuntary step backwards. He had seen it before, but not like this. It had then been painted a thick, dead white, with black squares in the ceiling inside which were lightly coloured flower motifs. The whole had had a Tudor effect. But now! Each wall was painted a different colour, and each colour was sharp and vivid. A green wall, a geranium red wall, a buttercup yellow wall, and a deep purple wall. The floor was painted black. The ceiling a vivid cornflower blue, as were the few hangings. The chairs were painted the same rich hue. At the height of a dado, an enormous dragon in gold ran around the four walls, his tail meeting his huge mouth. The studio was large and the effect overpowering.
"My God!" murmured Santley under his breath. He supposed that this was the effort of the latest tenant.
Flavelle laughed, a snap of a laugh. "Does rather hit you below the belt, doesn't it, but I enjoyed doing it before I let it. And the man who had the studio until last month rather liked it. He's going to keep it on—says it helps to drown the street noises."
Santley was surprised. The new Flavelle was quite capable of painting this room, but the old Flavelle? The meek little grey mouse?
There was another room opening out of this which the late occupier had kept as it was—whitewashed. It held a small firing oven, for pottery had been Flavelle's chief work before she left England and took to mosaics in earnest.
"My modelling tools," she laid a hand on a handsome old carved box of Arabian work on the table. Idly Santley fingered the contents while she moved about. Santley saw in a moment that the box had a secret bottom. He was fond of old furniture, and there is not an old box worthy the name which has not some hiding-place. It amused him to find this one. Perhaps Flavelle knew nothing of it. It was a simple matter of lifting up two compartment divisions and out popped a drawer below which was not visible to the eye in the network of carvings.
Flavelle had drifted into the bedroom. He expected to find the space empty, but a dusty little modelled figure in clay lay inside it. He picked it up. His mouth, which he had opened to call to her, shut with just such a snap as the drawer had given when it jumped out in answer to his tug. The figure was a tiny model of Moncrieff, and it was stuck through and through with a pin driven in where the heart would be and coming out in the back. Santley stared hard, then he dropped it hurriedly back and shut in the drawer. He strolled out into the studio and met the violence of the colours, the fierce eyes of the gold dragon again.
Flavelle was standing by the cornflower blue table with its glossy black top, rattling her scarlet painted nails on it in a tattoo.