Blandois of Paris pulled off his slouched hat, and saluted the ladies without coming out of his corner.
‘A thousand pardons!’ said he. ‘But the Professore here is so inexorable with me, that I am afraid to stir.’
‘Don’t stir, then,’ said Gowan coolly, as the sisters approached the easel. ‘Let the ladies at least see the original of the daub, that they may know what it’s meant for. There he stands, you see. A bravo waiting for his prey, a distinguished noble waiting to save his country, the common enemy waiting to do somebody a bad turn, an angelic messenger waiting to do somebody a good turn—whatever you think he looks most like!’
‘Say, Professore Mio, a poor gentleman waiting to do homage to elegance and beauty,’ remarked Blandois.
‘Or say, Cattivo Soggetto Mio,’ returned Gowan, touching the painted face with his brush in the part where the real face had moved, ‘a murderer after the fact. Show that white hand of yours, Blandois. Put it outside the cloak. Keep it still.’
Blandois’ hand was unsteady; but he laughed, and that would naturally shake it.
‘He was formerly in some scuffle with another murderer, or with a victim, you observe,’ said Gowan, putting in the markings of the hand with a quick, impatient, unskilful touch, ‘and these are the tokens of it. Outside the cloak, man!—Corpo di San Marco, what are you thinking of?’
Blandois of Paris shook with a laugh again, so that his hand shook more; now he raised it to twist his moustache, which had a damp appearance; and now he stood in the required position, with a little new swagger.
His face was so directed in reference to the spot where Little Dorrit stood by the easel, that throughout he looked at her. Once attracted by his peculiar eyes, she could not remove her own, and they had looked at each other all the time. She trembled now; Gowan, feeling it, and supposing her to be alarmed by the large dog beside him, whose head she caressed in her hand, and who had just uttered a low growl, glanced at her to say, ‘He won’t hurt you, Miss Dorrit.’
‘I am not afraid of him,’ she returned in the same breath; ‘but will you look at him?’