"It will look like the portrait of an actress in character; a costume picture," he said, presently; "the label isn't suggestive to me."
"There will, I promise you, be no trace of commonplace realism in it. It will be Velasquez dashed with Watteau. Can you realize the modest flight of my imagination? Seriously, Carrington, I intend to paint a masterpiece. I intend to paint a woman who would sell her soul for pleasure—a conscienceless, fascinating egotist—a corrupt charmer—saved by a certain naïveté. The eighteenth century, in fact, en grisette."
"Manon rather redeemed herself at the end, if I remember rightly," Carrington observed.
"Or circumstances redeemed her, if you will. She had a heart, perhaps; it never made her uncomfortable. Her love was of the doubtful quality that flies out of the window as want comes in at the door. Oh! she was a sweet little scélérate. I shall paint the type—the little scélérate."
"Well, of course, everything would depend on the treatment."
"Everything. I am going to astonish you there, Carrington."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Carrington said, good-humouredly.
"I see already the golden gray of her dim white boudoir; the satins, the laces, the high-heeled shoes, the rigid little waist, and face of pretty depravity. The face is the thing—the key. Where find the face? I think of a trip to Paris on purpose. One sees the glancing creature—such as I have in my mind—there, now and then. I want a fresh pallor, and gay, lazy eyes—light-brown, not too large."
"I fancy I know of someone," Carrington said, meditatively. "Not that she's dans le caractère," he added: "not at all; anything but depraved. But—her face; you could select." Carrington mused. "The line of her cheek is, I remember, mockingly at variance with her staid innocence of look."
"Who is she? Manon could look innocent, you know—was so, after a fashion. I should like a touch of childish insouciance. Who is she, and how can I get her?"