3
Felix raved in this fashion to Rose-Ann, who heard him with interest and in silence till he had finished.
“And what does the portrait look like now?” she asked.
“Well—very much like any other portrait, I must say. A little bolder, and lots of colour, but nothing startling. Or perhaps I’ve become so used to startling things by now that this seems a little tame.”
The last sitting was a prolonged one, in which the painter looked at him for what seemed hours at a time, and in which he could not rid himself of the perturbing conviction that she was seeing into his soul.... He was very tired when she finished at last—the sitting had as a matter of fact taken two hours, with only a few momentary rests—and Felix was in a mood of weariness and self-distrust when he went over to look at the completed portrait. Perhaps that accounted for what he saw:
Painted with an exquisite and mordant irony—with stick and cigarette, uncertainly halting, as if in front of life, the head tilted with a quirk of inquiry, the face curious and evasive, with something that was almost boldness in the eyes, something that was almost courage in the chin—Felix Fay, observant, indecisive, inadequate, against a rose-coloured background.