"I'm open to any offer," said Jean.
"But you won't paint me."
"No, you're too uninteresting. I like to paint good-looking people."
"Now that's what I call downright wickedness of you art people. You're all for outside show. Dress Vice up in beauty, and you'll paint her! The truly virtuous and intelligent of the earth count for naught. Why do you paint portraits? To perpetuate the individuals after they've gone the way of most men. Why should the homely good folk not be remembered, as well as fashion's beauties?"
"I quite agree with you," said Jean, "and as a matter of fact they often are—if they can afford it. It is only rich people, who order life-sized portraits in oils. But real good people will leave their lives and influence imprinted on the hearts of those who love them, and they will need no portraits to remember them by. The beauties who have nothing but their faces to recommend them, will need to have their pictures taken, if their friends wish to remember them at all."
"Poor Beauties!" said Charlie. "So now I know why you won't paint me. My life and influence has so imprinted itself on your heart, that you will need no portrait to bring me before you. Well—there's something soothing in that! But about this commission. It is an old chap who has been making his pile in Australia. He has had some funny ups and downs, but now he has settled down as a family man and bought an estate in Berkshire, and he wants to decorate his walls with the orthodox oil portraits. His wife vows she won't sit for the biggest painter living, but he is determined to have his own visage on his walls, and I undertook to sound you on the subject."
"I might not give him satisfaction," said Jean, slowly.
"Bless your heart! Anything would satisfy him. I believe I could sketch him off myself. A bald head, two keen far-seeing eyes, smug placid self-satisfied smile, thick plebeian nose, and very big prominent ears. White shirt front and red tie. Place him against a marble pillar, with an Italian stuccoed villa in the background, let his fat hand with two huge rings rest on a greyhound's head, and there you have him!"
"It doesn't sound enticing!"
"But, my dear girl, you don't paint because you like it, do you?"