“But you also said he looked like a corpse,” Michael quickly interjected. “You surely haven’t fallen in love with somebody who looks like a corpse?”
“I’m not in love with his outside, but I am fascinated by his inside,” Stella admitted.
Michael looked darkly for a moment, overshadowed by the thought of the fellow’s presumption.
“I never yet met a painter who had very much inside,” he commented.
“But then, my dearest Michael, I suppose you’ll confess that your acquaintanceship with the arts as practiced not talked about is rather small.”
Michael looked round him and eyed all Paris with comprehensive hostility.
“And I suppose this chap is in Paris now,” he said. “Well, I can’t do anything. I suppose for a long time now you’ve been making a fool of yourself over him. What have you fetched me to Paris for?”
He felt resentful to think that his hope of Stella and Alan falling in love with one another was to be broken up by this upstart painter whom he had never seen.
“I’ve certainly not been making a fool of myself,” Stella flamed. “But I thought I would rather you were close at hand.”
“And who’s this Clarissa Vine?” Michael indignantly demanded.