Rather late in the afternoon of the same day, towards half-past five, Dick Garstin, who was alone in his studio upstairs smoking a pipe and reading Delacroix’s “Mon Journal,” heard his door bell ring. He was stretched out on a divan, and he lay for a moment without moving, puffing at his pipe with the book in his hand. Then he heard the bell again, and got up. Arabian’s portrait stood on its easel in the middle of the room. Garstin glanced at it as he went toward the stairs. Since the day when he had shown it for the first time to Beryl Van Tuyn and Arabian he had not seen either of them. Nor had he had a word from them. This had not troubled him. Already he was at work on another sitter, a dancer in the Russian ballet, talented, decadent, impertinent, and, so Garstin believed, marked out for early death in a madhouse—altogether quite an interesting study. But now, looking at Arabian’s portrait, Garstin thought:
“Probably the man himself. I knew he would come back, and we should have a battle. Now for it!”
And he smiled as he went striding downstairs.
But when he opened the door he found standing outside in the foggy darkness a tall, soldierly old man, with an upright figure, white hair, and moustache, a lined red face and dark eyes which looked straight into his.
“Who are you, sir?” said Garstin. “And what do you want?”
“Are you Mr. Dick Garstin?” said the old man.
“Or rather, elderly,” Garstin now said to himself, glancing sharply over his visitor’s strong, lean frame and broad shoulders.
“Yes, I am.”
The stranger opened a leather case and took out a card.
“Perhaps you will kindly read that.”
Garstin took the card.
“Beryl!” he said. “What’s up?”
And he read: “To introduce Sir Seymour Portman,please see him. B. V. T.”
“Are you Sir Seymour Portman?”
“Yes.”
“Come in.”
Sir Seymour stepped in.
“Take off your coat?”
“If you’ll allow me. I won’t keep you long.”
“The longer the better!” said Garstin with offhand heartiness. He had taken a liking to his visitor at first sight.
“A damned fine old chap!” had been his instant mental comment on seeing Sir Seymour. “A fellow to swear by!”
“Come upstairs. I’ll show you the way,” he added.
He tramped up and Sir Seymour followed him.
“I do most of my painting here,” said Garstin. “Sit down. Have a cigar.”
“Thank you very much, but I won’t smoke,” said Sir Seymour, looking round casually at the portraits in the room before sitting down and crossing his right leg over his left leg. “And I won’t take up your time for more than a few minutes.”
At this moment he noticed at some distance the portrait of Arabian on its easel, and he put up his eyeglasses. Then he moved.
“Will you allow me to look at that portrait over there?” he asked.
“Rather! It’s the last thing I’ve done, and not so bad either!”
Sir Seymour got up and went to stand in front of the portrait. He was puzzled, and his face showed that; he frowned and pursed his lips, bending forward.
“This is a portrait of a man called Arabian, isn’t it?” he said at length, turning round to Garstin.
“Yes. D’you know the fellow?”
“I haven’t that—privilege,” replied Sir Seymour with an extraordinarily dry intonation. “But I must have seen him somewhere.”
“About town. He’s been here some time.”
“But he’s altered!” said Sir Seymour, still looking hard at the portrait.
“I’m not a photographer, you know!”
“A photographer!” said Sir Seymour, who was something of a connoisseur in painting, and had a few good specimens of the Barbizon School in his apartment at St. James’s Palace. “No. This isn’t a photograph in paint. It’s a”—he gazed again at the portrait—“it’s a masterly study of a remarkable and hideous personality.”
“Hideous!” said Garstin sharply.
“Yes, hideous,” said Sir Seymour grimly. “An abominable face! Ah!”
He had been bending, but now pulled himself up.
“I saw that man at the Ritz Hotel a good many years ago,” he said. “I was giving a lunch. He was lunching close by with—let me see—an old woman, yes, in a rusty black wig. Someone spoke to me about him, and I—, Yes! I remember it all perfectly. But he looked much younger then. It must be over ten years ago. I spotted him at once as a shady character. One would, of course. But you have brought it all to the surface in some subtle way. Does he like it?”
“To tell the truth I don’t believe he does.”
“I wish to speak to you about that man.”
“Sit down again. Have a whisky?”
“No, thanks.”
“What is it? Are the police after him?”
“I’m not aware of it.”
“I know everything about him, as you see”—he shot out an arm towards the portrait—“and nothing. I picked him up at the Cafe Royal. He’s a magnificent specimen.”
“No doubt. What I want to know is whether you will allow me to bring two or three people here to see this portrait? I’m doing this—I’m here now, and want to come here again, if you are so kind as to allow me—”
“Always jolly glad to see you!” interjected Garstin, with a sort of gruff heartiness.
“Thank you! I’m doing this for your friend, Miss Beryl Van Tuyn.”
“Ha!” said Garstin.
“I don’t think I need to go into the matter further than to say that she does not wish to have anything more to do with this Mr. Arabian.”
“Oh, she’s found him out at last, has she, and put you up to—”
Garstin paused. Then he added:
“It’s like Beryl’s cheek to ask a man of your type to interfere in such a matter. Fellows like Arabian are hardly in your line.”
“Oh, I’ve had to deal with men of all classes.”
“And quite able to, I should say. So Beryl’s had enough of that chap?”
“Mr. Garstin, I am going to be frank with you, frank to this extent. Arabian is a blackguard.”
“No news to me!”
“Miss Van Tuyn can have no further acquaintance with him, and I am going to do my best to see to that. But I believe this fellow is very persistent.”
“I should say so. He’s a hard nut to crack. You may depend on that.”
“And therefore strong measures may be necessary.”
“Whom do you want to bring here to look at my stuff?”
“Two or three officials from Scotland Yard.”
Garstin uttered the thrush’s song through half-closed lips.
“That’s it! Well, you can bring them along whenever you like.”
“Thank you. They may not be art experts, but they, or one of them, may possibly be useful for my purpose.”
“Right you are! So you know something definite about the fellow?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t bother yourself! I don’t want to know what it is,” snapped out Garstin abruptly.
Sir Seymour smiled, and it was almost what Lady Sellingworth called his “beaming” smile. He got up and held out his hand.
“Thank you,” he said.
Garstin gave him a strong grip.
“Glad I’ve met you!” he said. “Beryl’s done me a good turn.”
“Perhaps you will allow me to say—though I’m no expert, and my opinion may therefore have no value in your eyes—but you’ve painted a portrait such as one very seldom sees nowadays.”
“D’you mean you think it’s fine?”
“Very fine! Wonderful!”
Garstin’s usually hard face softened in an extraordinary way.
“Your opinion goes down in my memory in red letters.”
Sir Seymour turned to go. As he did so he cast a look round the studio, which suggested to Garstin that he would perhaps like to examine the other portraits dotted about on easels and hanging on the walls. A faint reddish line appeared in the painter’s shaven blue cheeks.
“Not worth your while!” he almost muttered.
“Eh?” said Sir Seymour.
“A lot of decadent stuff. I’ve been choosing my models badly. But—” he paused, looking almost diffident for a moment.
“Yes?” said Sir Seymour.
“Perhaps, if we ever get to know each other a bit better, you’d let me have a shy at you for a change?”
“That would be an honour,” said Sir Seymour with a touch of his very simple, courtly manner.
“In return you know for my letting in the detectives!” said Garstin, with a laugh. “Hulloh!”
He had heard the bell ring downstairs.
“If it’s our man!” he said, instinctively lowering his voice.
“Arabian! Are you expecting him?”
“No. But it’s just as likely as not. Want to meet him?”
“I can hardly say that!” said Sir Seymour, looking suddenly, Garstin thought, remarkably like a very well-bred ramrod.
“Well, then—”
“But it may be necessary.” He hesitated obviously, then added: “If it should be Arabian by chance, perhaps it would be as well if I did see him.”
“Just as you like.”
“I’ll stay if you will allow me,” said Sir Seymour, with sudden decision, like a man who had just overcome something.
The bell rang again.
“Can you act?” said Garstin, quickly.
“Sufficiently, I dare say,” said Sir Seymour, with a very faint and grim smile.
“Then you’d better! He can!”
And Garstin sprang down the stairs. Two or three minutes later Arabian walked into the studio with Garstin just behind him. When he saw Sir Seymour a slight look of surprise came into his face, and he half turned towards Garstin as if in inquiry. Sir Seymour realized that Garstin had not mentioned that there was a visitor in the studio.
“A friend of mine, Sir Seymour Portman,” said Garstin. “Mr. Nicolas Arabian!”
Arabian bowed and said formally:
“Very glad to meet you.”
Sir Seymour bowed, and said:
“Thanks.”
“Sit down, my boy!” said Garstin, with sudden heartiness, laying a hand on Arabian’s shoulder. “And I know you’ll put your lips to a whisky.”
“Thank you,” said Arabian.
And he sat down in a deep arm-chair. Sir Seymour saw his brown eyes, for a moment hard and inquiring, rest upon the visitor he had not expected to find, and wondered whether Arabian remembered having seen him before. If so Arabian would also remember that he, Seymour, was a friend of Adela Sellingworth, who had been with him at the Ritz on that day ten years ago.
“Say how much,” said Garstin, coming up with the whisky.
Sir Seymour noticed that Arabian took a great deal of the spirit and very little soda-water with it. Directly his glass was filled—it was a long glass—he drank almost greedily.
“A cigar?” said Garstin. “But I know without asking.”
“I do not refuse,” said Arabian.
And Sir Seymour hated his voice, while realizing that it was agreeable, perhaps even seductive.
“There! Now we’re cozy!” said Garstin. “But I wish Sir Seymour you’d join us!”
“If you will allow me I will smoke a light cigar I have here.”
And Sir Seymour drew out a cigar-case and lit up a pale and long Havannah.
“That’s better!” said Garstin, drinking. “How’s Beryl, my boy?”
“I have not seen Miss Van Tuyn to-day,” said Arabian. “But I hope to see her to-morrow.”
He looked at Sir Seymour, and there seemed to be a flicker of suspicion in his eyes.
“DO you know Miss Van Tuyn?” he asked.
“Very slightly,” said Sir Seymour. “I have met her once or twice in London. She is a very beautiful creature.”
There was constraint in the room. Sir Seymour felt it strongly and feared that it came from something in him. Evidently he was not a very good actor. He found it difficult to be easy and agreeable with a man whom he longed to get hold of by the collar and thrash till it was time to hand him over to the police. But he resolved to make a strong effort to conceal what he could not conquer. And he began to talk to Arabian. Afterwards he could not remember what they had talked about just then. He could only remember the strangeness which he had realized as he sat there smoking his Havannah, the strangeness of life. That he should be smoking and chatting with the scoundrel who had changed Adela’s existence, who had tricked her, robbed her, driven her into the solitude which had lasted ten years! And why was he doing it? He did not absolutely know. But his instinct had told him to stay on in Garstin’s studio when everything else in him, revolting, had shrunk from meeting this beast, unless and until he could deal with him properly.
He had smoked about half his cigar, and the constraint in the room seemed to him to be lessened, though not abolished, when the conversation took a turn quite unexpected by him. And all that was said in the studio from that moment remained firmly fixed in his memory. Garstin got up to fetch some more whisky for Arabian, whose glass was now empty, and as he came back with the decanter he said to Arabian:
“Sir Seymour’s had a good look at your portrait, Arabian.”
“Indeed!” said Arabian.
“And he thinks it’s damn fine. As I’m giving it to you, I thought you’d like to know that it’s appreciated.”
There was an unmistakably malicious expression on Garstin’s face as he spoke, and his small eyes travelled quickly from Arabian to Sir Seymour.
“In fact,” added Garstin, lifting the decanter to pour the whisky into Arabian’s glass, “Sir Seymour is so pleased with my work that I shouldn’t wonder if he lets me paint him.”
“Ah!” said Arabian, looking at Sir Seymour, with a sudden hard intensity which strangely transformed his face, “this is good news. I am pleased. But—thank you!” (to Garstin who poured out some more whisky) “that will do, please! But you are not afraid of the drawback?”
“What drawback?” asked Sir Seymour.
“Mr. Dick Garstin makes us all look likecanaille!”
“Indeed!”
“But have you not noticed this?” said Arabian.
And the agreeable softness of his voice altered, giving way to an almost rasping quality of sound. He put down his glass and got up, with a lithe and swift movement that seemed somehow menacing. It was so light, so agile, so noiseless and controlled.
“Surely you have. Please, look at all these!”
He made a sweeping circular movement with his arm. Sir Seymour got on his feet.
“Do you not see? There is the same thing in all. We are all placed by Mr. Dick Garstin in the same boat. Even the judge, he is there too. Look!”
Sir Seymour looked from canvas to canvas and then at Arabian.
“Well?” said Arabian, still in the rasping voice. “Do I say true? Are we not all turned intocanailleby Dick Garstin?”
Sir Seymour did not answer.
“With you if you are painted,” continued Arabian, “it will be the same. Dick Garstin must see bad in us all.”
He laughed and his laugh was oddly shrill and ugly.
“It is anidee fixe,” he said. “You see, I am frank. I say what I think, Dick Garstin.”
“No objection to that!” said Garstin, with a mischievous smile. “But if you don’t like your picture you won’t want to have it. So let us consider our bargain cancelled.”
“Oh, no,” said Arabian, “the picture is mine.”
“The bargain we made,” said Garstin, turning to Sir Seymour, “was this: Mr. Arabian was to be kind enough to sit to me on two conditions. One was in my favour, the other in his.”
“I beg your pardon!” said Arabian sharply.
But Garstin continued inflexibly:
“I was to have the right to exhibit the picture, and, after that, I was to hand it over as a present to Arabian.”
“No, that was not the bargain, please!” said Arabian.
“Not the bargain?” said Garstin, with an air of humorous surprise.
“Oh, no. You kindly said that if I gave up my time to you, as I have done, very much of my time, you would give me the picture when it was finished. That was the bargain between us. But I did not say I would allow you to exhibit my picture.”
“But I told you before I ever put a smudge of paint on the canvas that I should want to exhibit it.”
“That is quite true.”
“Well, then?”
“Two must speak to make a bargain. Is it not so?” He spoke to Sir Seymour.
“I presume so,” said the latter, very solemnly.
He had realized that this odd scene had been brought about deliberately, and perhaps by both of the men who stood before him. Garstin had certainly started it, but Arabian had surely with purpose, taken the cue from Garstin.
“Ah! You hear!”
“I do!” said Garstin, composedly.
“Well, Dick Garstin, I did not say I would permit my picture to be exhibited by you. And that was on purpose. I intended to wait until I saw how you would make me appear. I have waited. There I am!” He pointed to the portrait. “It is fine, perhaps, as you say. But I do not choose that people should see that and be told, ‘That is Nicolas Arabian.’ I do not give you permission to show that portrait.”
“You don’t like it?”
“You have made of me a beast. That is what I say.”
“Sorry you think so! But what’s to be done? That picture is worth from eight hundred to a thousand pounds at the very least. You don’t suppose I am going to give it to you without letting the people who care about my stuff have a look at it? Why, where is your sense of fairness, my boy?”
“I do not know really what you mean by that!”
“Well, I ask you, Sir Seymour, would it be fair that I should have all my trouble for nothing? He can have the picture. But I want mykudos. Eh?”
“I quite understand that,” said Sir Seymour, calmly.
Arabian turned round and faced him. And as he did so Sir Seymour said to himself:
“The fellow’s been drinking heavily.”
This thought had not occurred in his mind till this moment, but he felt certain that Garstin’s sharp eyes had noticed the fact sooner, probably directly they had seen Arabian at the street door. No doubt the very stiff whisky-and-soda Arabian had just drunk had made it more obvious. Anyhow, Sir Seymour had no doubt at all about it now. It was not noticeable in Arabian’s face. But his manner began to show it to the experienced eyes of the old campaigner.
“But, please, do you understand my feeling? Would you like to be made what you are not—a beast?”
Sir Seymour saw Garstin, perhaps with difficulty, shutting off a smile.
“I can’t say I should,” he answered, with absolute gravity.
“Would you,” pursued Arabian, apparently in desperate earnest, “would you allow a picture of you like this to be shown to all your friends?”
“I think,” returned Sir Seymour, still with an absolute and simple gravity, “that I should object to that—strongly.”
“You hear!” said Arabian to Garstin. “It is your friend who says this.”
“I can’t help that,” said Garstin, totally unperturbed. “I’m going to exhibit that picture.”
“No! No!” said Arabian.
And as he spoke he suddenly bared his teeth.
Garstin, without making any rejoinder to this almost brutally forcible exclamation, which was full of violent will, thrust a hand into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a big gold watch.
“I say, I’m awfully sorry,” he said, with a swift glance at Sir Seymour, which the latter did not miss, “but I must turn you both out. I’m dining at the Arts Club to-night. Jinks—you know the Slade Jinks—is coming to pick me up. You’ll forgive me, Sir Seymour?”
His voice was unusually gentle as he said the last words.
“Of course. I’ve stayed an unconscionable time. Are you going my way, Mr. Arabian?”
Garstin’s mouth twitched. Before Arabian could reply, Garstin said:
“Look here, Arabian!”
“Yes—please?” said Arabian.
“You and I differ pretty badly about this business of your damned portrait.”
“Ah, yes!”
“Sir Seymour’s a just man, a very just man. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
“But you tell us you have no time!”
“Exactly! Jinks you know! He’s a devil for punctuality. They set the clocks by him at the Slade! Butyou—”
“Yes?”
“Talk it over with Sir Seymour. Get his unbiased verdict. And let me hear from you any time to-morrow. He’ll say what’s fair and square. I know that.”
While speaking he went towards the head of the stairs, followed by Sir Seymour and Arabian. As Arabian passed the place where the whisky stood he picked up his glass and drunk it off at a gulp.
A minute later Sir Seymour and he were out in the night together.
“I’ll go your way if you like. I live in St. James’s Palace. But I’m in no hurry. Do you live in my direction?”
“Oh, no. I live quite near in Chelsea.”
“I can walk to your door then if you don’t mind having my company,” said Sir Seymour.
“Thank you!”
And they walked on together in silence. Sir Seymour wondered what was passing in the mind of the man beside him. He felt sure that Arabian had been at first suspicious of him in the studio. Had he been able by his manner to lull that suspicion to rest? He was inclined to believe so. But it was impossible for him to be sure. After two or three minutes of silence he spoke again. But he made no allusion to the recent scene in the studio, or to Garstin’s parting words. His instinct counselled silence on that point. So he talked of London, the theatres, the affairs of the day, trying to seem natural, like a man of the world with a casual acquaintance. He noticed that Arabian’s answers and comments were brief. Sometimes when he did speak he spoke at random. It was obvious that he was preoccupied. He seemed to Sir Seymour to be brooding darkly over something. This state of things continued until they reached Rose Tree Gardens.
“This is it,” said Arabian, stopping before the big porch.
Sir Seymour stopped, too, hesitated, then said:
“I’ll say good night to you.”
Arabian shot a piercing and morose glance at him, moved his right hand as if about to extend it, dropped it and said:
“Well, but we have not spoken any more about my picture!”
“No.”
“Dick Garstin said you would decide.”
“Scarcely that—was it?”
“But I think it was.”
“Well, but it’s really not my affair.”
“But he made it so.”
“Perhaps. But you didn’t say—”
“But I should like to know what you think.”
“Very good of you. But I’m an outsider. I wasn’t there when you made what you say was a bargain.”
“No, but—”
Again he sent a piercing glance to Sir Seymour, who received it with absolute sangfroid, and stood looking completely detached, firm and simple. At that moment Sir Seymour felt positive that a struggle was going on in Arabian in which the drink he had taken was playing a part. The intensely suspicious nature of the enemy of society, always on the alert, because always liable to be in danger, was at odds with the demon that steals away the wits of men, unchains their recklessness, unlocks their tongues, uncovers often their most secret inclinations. Arabian was hesitating. At that moment the least thing would turn him one way or the other, would prompt him to give himself to the intense caution which was probably natural to him, or would drive him to the incaution which he would regret when he was physically normal again. It seemed to Sir Seymour that he knew this, and that he had it in his power just then to turn the scale, to make it drop to whichever side he wished. And as Arabian hesitated at that moment so Sir Seymour hesitated too. He longed to get away from the man, to have done with him forever. But he had put his hand to a task. He had here an opportunity. Garstin had certainly given it to him deliberately. It would be weak not to take advantage of it. He was not accustomed to yield to his weak inclinations, and he resolved not to do so now. He was sure that if he showed the least sign of wishing to push himself into Arabian’s affairs the man would recoil at once, in spite of the drink which was slightly, but definitely, clouding his perceptions. So he took the contrary course. He forced himself to hold out his hand to the beast, and said:
“Well—good-night!”
But Arabian did not take his hand.
“Oh, but please come in for a moment!” he said. “Why go away?”
“It’s getting late.”
“But I will not keep you long. Dick Garstin said you should judge between us, that I was to come to-morrow and tell him. I know you will say I have the right. Come up. I will explain to you.”
“Very well,” said Sir Seymour, with apparent reluctance, “but really I must not stay long.”
“No, no! You are very good. It is not your business. But really it is important. Here! We will take the elevator.”
As he got into the lift Sir Seymour wondered whether he would have tricked Arabian if the latter had not been drinking. While the lift was going swiftly and smoothly up he decided that before he came down in it he would make quite plain to Arabian why he had been to Dick Garstin’s studio that day. The opportunity which was given to him he would take advantage of to the full. If only he could strike a blow for Adela instead of for Miss Van Tuyn! But Adela had let this brute go. And could she have done anything else? For she had had her own folly to be afraid of. But all that was ten years ago. And now—She was different now! He reiterated that to himself as he stood in the lift almost touching Arabian. Adela was quite different now. She had given herself to the best that was in her.
“Here it is!”
The lift had stopped. They got out on a landing, and Arabian put a key into a door.
“Do please take off your coat. It is all warm in here!”
“Yes, and some brute’s been burning scent in a shovel!” thought Sir Seymour, as he stepped into the flat.
“I think I’ll keep my coat,” he said. “I shan’t be staying long.”
“Oh, if you are in such a hurry!” said Arabian, with sudden moody irritation.
He shut the door with a bang. In the electric light he looked tired and menacing. At least Sir Seymour thought so. But the light in the little hall was shaded and not very strong.
“You will be much too hot truly!” said Arabian.
“Then I’ll leave my coat,” said Sir Seymour.
And he took it off, laid it on a chair and went into a room on the left, the door of which Arabian held open.
“This is my salon. I take the flat furnished. The river is there.”
He pointed towards the windows now covered by curtains.
“Please sit down by the fire. I will explain. I know you will be on my side.”
He pressed a bell on the right of the mantelpiece.
Almost instantaneously the door was opened and a thin man—who looked about thirty, Sir Seymour thought—showed himself. He had a very dark narrow face and curiously light-grey eyes. Arabian spoke to him in Spanish. He listened, motionless, turned and went softly out.
“You must have a little whisky with me!” said Arabian.
“No, thank you!”
“But—why not?”
“I never take it at this time.”
“Well, I must have some. I have got a cold. This climate in winter—it is awful!”
He shook his broad shoulders and blinked rapidly several times, then suddenly opened his eyes very wide and yawned.
“Well now!” he said. “But please sit down.”
Sir Seymour sat down. Arabian stood with his back to the fire and his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. Sir Seymour noticed what a magnificently made man he was. He had certainly been endowed with physical gifts for the undoing of women. But his brown face, strikingly handsome though it undoubtedly was, had the hard stamp of vice on it. Long ago at a first glance Sir Seymour had seen that this man was a wrong ‘un, and now, as he looked at Arabian, he found himself wondering how anyone could fail to see that.
“Now I will tell you exactly,” Arabian said.
And he explained carefully and lucidly enough—though through occasional yawns—what had happened between Garstin and himself. He did not mention Miss Van Tuyn’s name. As he was getting towards the end of his narrative his servant came in with a tray on which were bottles and glasses. He said nothing and Arabian said nothing to him, but went on talking and did not appear to notice him. But directly he had gone Arabian poured out some whisky, added a little soda and drank it.
“There! That is how we did!” he said at last.
And he dropped softly, with an odd lightness, into a chair near Sir Seymour, and nodded:
“Now, have I not the right over the picture? Can I not send to-morrow and take it away? Is it not just?”
“Just!” said Sir Seymour. “Do you care so much about justice?”
“Eh?” said Arabian, suddenly leaning forward in his chair. “What is that?”
The bitter sarcasm which Sir Seymour had not been able to keep out of his voice had evidently startled Arabian.
“You are English,” he said, as Sir Seymour said nothing. “Do you not care that a stranger in your country should have justice?”
“Oh, yes. I care very much about that.”
The intense dryness of the voice that answered evidently made an impression on Arabian. For he fixed his eyes on his guest with intense and hard inquiry, and laid his brown hands on the arms of his chair, as if in readiness for something. But he only said:
“Well—please?”
Sir Seymour’s inclination was to get up. But he did not obey it. He sat without moving, and returned Arabian’s stare with a firm, soldier’s gaze. The fearlessness of his eyes was absolute, unflinching.
“I thoroughly understand why you don’t want Mr. Garstin to show people that picture,” he said.
“Ah!”
“The biggest fool in creation, if he saw it, would understand.”
“Understand what—please?”
“Understand you.”
“Pardon!” said Arabian sharply. “What do you mean?”
He was up. But Sir Seymour sat still.
“Mr. Garstin uncovered your secret,” he said. “A man such as you are naturally objects to that.”
“What have you come here for?” said Arabian.
“You asked me to come.”
“What did you go to Dick Garstin for?”
“That is my business.”
Sir Seymour got up slowly, very deliberately even, from his chair.
“My secret, you say. What do you know about me?”
In the voice there was intense suspicion.
“We needn’t discuss that. I am not going to discuss it.”
“What did you go to Dick Garstin for?”
“I went to ask him if he would allow me to bring two or three people to his studio to look at his portrait of you.”
“My portrait! What is my portrait to you? Why should you bring people?”
But Sir Seymour did not answer the question. Instead he put one hand on the mantelpiece, leaned slightly towards Arabian, and said:
“You wanted my verdict on the rights of the case between you and Mr. Garstin. That isn’t my affair. You must fight it out between you. But I should seriously advise you not to take too long over the quarrel. You said just now that the English climate was awful. Get out of it as soon as you can.”
“Get out of it! What is it to you whether I stay or go?”
“I’m afraid if you delay here much longer you may be sorry for it.”
“Who are you?” said Arabian fiercely.
“I’m a friend of Miss Van Tuyn.”
“What has that to do with me? Why do you try to interfere with me?”
“Miss Van Tuyn—I saw her this morning—wishes me to see to it that you leave her alone, get out of her life.”
“Are you her father, a relation?”
“No.”
“Then what have you to do with it? You—you impertinent old man!”
Sir Seymour’s brick-red, weather-beaten face took on a darker, almost a purplish, hue, and the hand that had been holding the mantelpiece tightened into a fist.
“You will leave this young lady alone,” he said sternly. “Do you hear? You will leave her alone. She knows what you are.”
Arabian had pushed out his full under-lip and was staring now intently at Sir Seymour. His gaze was intense, and yet there was a cloudy look in his eyes. The effect of what he had drunk was certainly increasing upon him in the heat of the rather small room.
“When I came into the studio,” he said after a moment’s silence, “I remembered your face, and, ‘Why is he here?’ That was my thought. Why is he there? Where did I see you?”
“That doesn’t matter. You will give up your acquaintance with Miss Van Tuyn. You will get out of London. And then no measures will be taken against you.”
“Where was it?” persisted Arabian. “Do you remember me?”
“Yes,” said Sir Seymour.
He debated within himself for an instant, and then took a decision.
“I saw you at the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly ten years or more ago.”
“At the Ritz!”
“I was lunching with a friend. I was lunching with Lady Sellingworth.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Arabian. “That was it! I remember. So—shesent—I see! I see!”
He half shut his eyes and a vein in his forehead swelled, giving to his brow a look of violence.
“She has—She has—”
He shut his mouth with a snap of the teeth. Sir Seymour was aware of a struggle taking place in him. Something, urged on by drink, was fighting hard with his natural caution. But the caution, long trained, no doubt, and kept in almost perpetual use, was fighting hard too.
“No one sent me,” said Sir Seymour with contempt. “But that’s no matter. You understand now that you are to leave this young lady alone. Her acquaintance with you has ceased. It won’t be renewed. If you call on her you will be sent off. If you write to her your letters will be burnt without being read. If you try to persecute her in any way means will be found to protect her and to punish you. I shall see to that.”
Arabian’s mouth was still tightly shut and he was standing quite still and seemed to be thinking, or trying to think, deeply. For his eyes now had a curiously inward look. If Sir Seymour had expected a burst of rage as the sequel to his very plain speaking he was deceived. Apparently this man was serenely beyond that society in which a human being can be insulted and resent it. Or else had he been thinking with such intensity that he had not even heard what had just been said to him? For a moment Sir Seymour was inclined to believe so. And he was about to reiterate what he had said, to force it on Arabian’s attention, when the latter stopped him.
“Yes—yes!” he said. “I hear! Do not!”
He seemed to be turning something over in his mind with complete self-possession under the eyes of the man who had just scornfully attacked him. At last he said:
“I fear I was rude just now. You startled me. I said it was impertinence. But I see, I understand now. The women—they are clever. And when age comes—ah, we have no longer much defence against them.”
And he smiled.
“What d’you mean?” said Sir Seymour, longing to knock the fellow down, and feeling an almost insuperable difficulty in retaining his self-control.
“This I mean! You say you come to me sent by Miss Van Tuyn. But I say—no! You come to me sent by Lady Sellingworth.”
Sir Seymour was startled. Was the fellow so brazen that he was going to allude to what had happened over ten years ago? That seemed incredible, but with such a man perhaps everything was possible.
“It is like this!” continued Arabian, in a suave and explanatory voice. “Lady Sellingworth she hates Miss Van Tuyn. They have quarrelled about a young man. His name is Craven. I have met him in a restaurant. I dine there with Miss van Tuyn. He dines there that night with Lady Sellingworth, who is in love with him, as old women are with nice-looking boys, and—”
“Hold your tongue, you infernal blackguard!”
“Miss Van Tuyn calls Craven to us, and Lady Sellingworth is so jealous that she runs out of the restaurant, so that he is obliged to follow her and leave Miss Van Tuyn—”
“You damned ruffian!” said Sir Seymour.
His face was congested with anger. He put out his arm as if he were going to seize Arabian by the collar of his jacket. For once in his life he “saw red”; for once he was forced by indignation into saying something he would never have said had he given himself time to think. He was carried away by impulse like a youth in spite of his years, of his white hair, of his immense natural self-control.
Arabian moved backwards with a swift, wary movement. Sir Seymour did not follow him. He stood where he was and said again:
“You damned ruffian! If you don’t get out of the country I’ll set the police on you.”
“Indeed! What for, please?”
“For stealing Lady Sellingworth’s jewels in Paris ten years ago!”
Arabian bared his teeth like an animal and half shut his eyes. There was a strange look about his temples, as if under the deep brown of his skin something had gone suddenly white.
“Miss Van Tuyn knows that you stole them!”
Arabian drew in his breath sharply. His mouth opened wide.
Sir Seymour turned and went out of the room. He shut the door behind him. In the little scented hall he caught up his coat and hat. He heard a door click. The dark man with the light grey eyes showed himself.
“Keep away, you!” said Sir Seymour.
The man stood where he was, and Sir Seymour went out of the flat.