‘So you want to paint my daughter. What’s your figure?’
‘A hundred and fifty.’
‘Rather tall for these days – you’re a young man. However – so long as you make a good thing of it!’
The Rafaelite bowed ironically.
‘Yes,’ said Soames, ‘I dare say; you think all your geese are swans – never met a painter who didn’t. You won’t keep her sitting long, I suppose – she’s busy. That’s agreed, then. Goodbye! Don’t come down!’
As they went out he said to Fleur:
‘I’ve fixed that. You can begin sitting when you like. His work’s better than you’d think from the look of him. Forbidding chap, I call him.’
‘A painter has to be forbidding, Dad; otherwise people would think he was cadging.’
‘Something in that,’ said Soames. ‘I’ll get back now, as you won’t let me take you home. Good-bye! Take care of yourself, and don’t overdo it.’ And, receiving her kiss, he got into the car.
Fleur began to walk towards her eastward-bound bus as his car moved west, nor did he see her stop, give him some law, then retrace her steps to June’s.
Chapter Three
POSSESSING THE SOUL
JUST as in a very old world to find things or people of pure descent is impossible, so with actions; and the psychologist who traces them to single motives is like Soames, who believed that his daughter wanted to be painted in order that she might see herself hanging on a wall. Everybody, he knew, had themselves hung sooner or later, and generally sooner. Yet Fleur, though certainly not averse to being hung, had motives that were hardly so single as all that. In the service of this complexity, she went back to June’s. That little lady, who had been lurking in her bedroom so as not to meet her kinsman, was in high feather.
‘Of course the price is nominal,’ she said. ‘Harold ought really to be getting every bit as much for his portraits as Thorn or Lippen. Still, it’s so important for him to be making something while he’s waiting to take his real place. What have you come back for?’
‘Partly for the pleasure of seeing you,’ said Fleur, ‘and partly because we forgot to arrange for the first sitting. I think my best time would be three o’clock.’
‘Yes,’ murmured June doubtfully, not so much from doubt as from not having suggested it herself. ‘I think Harold could manage that. Isn’t his work exquisite?’
‘I particularly like the thing he’s done of Anne. It’s going down to them tomorrow, I hear.’
‘Yes; Jon’s coming to fetch it.’
Fleur looked hastily into the little dim mirror to see that she was keeping expression off her face.
‘What do you think I ought to wear?’
June’s gaze swept her from side to side.
‘Oh! I expect he’ll want an artificial scheme with you.’
‘Exactly! But what colour? One must come in something.’
‘We’ll go up and ask him.’
The Rafaelite was standing before his picture of Anne. He turned and looked at them, without precisely saying: ‘Good Lord! These women!’ and nodded, gloomily, at the suggestion of three o’clock.
‘What do you want her in?’ asked June.
The Rafaelite stared at Fleur as if determining where her ribs left off and her hip-bones began.
‘Gold and silver,’ he said at last.
June clasped her hands.
‘Now isn’t that extraordinary? He’s seen through you at once. Your gold and silver room. Harold, how did you?’
‘I happen to have an old “Folly” dress,’ said Fleur, ‘silver and gold, with bells, that I haven’t worn since I was married.’
‘A “Folly”!’ cried June. ‘The very thing. If it’s pretty. Some are hideous, of course.’
‘Oh, it’s pretty, and makes a charming sound.’
‘He can’t paint that,’ said June. Then added dreamily: ‘But you could suggest it, Harold – like Leonardo.’
‘Leonardo!’
‘Oh! Of course! I know, he wasn’t –’
The Rafaelite interrupted.
‘Don’t make your face up,’ he said to Fleur.
‘No,’ murmured Fleur. ‘June, I do so like that of Anne. Has it struck you that she’s sure to want Jon painted now?’
‘Of course. I’ll make him promise when he comes tomorrow.’
‘He’s going to begin farming, you know; he’ll make that an excuse. Men hate being painted.’
‘Oh, that’s all nonsense,’ said June. ‘In old days they loved it. Anyway, Jon must sit before he begins. They’ll make a splendid pair.’