"Yes, it's good—it's damn good, Popp; you've hit the hair off ripplingly; but the pearls ain't big enough," he pronounced.
A slight laugh sounded from the raised dais behind the easel.
"Of course they're not! But it's not HIS fault, poor man; HE didn't give them to me!" As she spoke Mrs. Ralph Marvell rose from a monumental gilt arm-chair of pseudo-Venetian design and swept her long draperies to Van Degen's side.
"He might, then—for the privilege of painting you!" the latter rejoined, transferring his bulging stare from the counterfeit to the original. His eyes rested on Mrs. Marvell's in what seemed a quick exchange of understanding; then they passed on to a critical inspection of her person. She was dressed for the sitting in something faint and shining, above which the long curves of her neck looked dead white in the cold light of the studio; and her hair, all a shadowless rosy gold, was starred with a hard glitter of diamonds.
"The privilege of painting me? Mercy, I have to pay for being painted! He'll tell you he's giving me the picture—but what do you suppose this cost?" She laid a finger-tip on her shimmering dress.
Van Degen's eye rested on her with cold enjoyment. "Does the price come higher than the dress?"
She ignored the allusion. "Of course what they charge for is the cut—"
"What they cut away? That's what they ought to charge for, ain't it,
Popp?"
Undine took this with cool disdain, but Mr. Popple's sensibilities were offended.
"My dear Peter—really—the artist, you understand, sees all this as a pure question of colour, of pattern; and it's a point of honour with the MAN to steel himself against the personal seduction."