“Yes, he was introduced to me last night,” explained Katharine in an undertone, and bending her head graciously as the elderly man bowed from a distance.
“Oh! that’s very nice,” observed Crowdie. “I didn’t know whether you had met. I hate introducing people. They’re apt to remember it against one. Griggs is an old friend, Miss Lauderdale.”
Katharine looked at the painter and thought he was less repulsive than usual.
“I know,” she answered. “Do you really want me to sit this morning, Mr. Crowdie? You know, we said Friday—”
“Of course I do! There’s your chair, all ready for you—just where it was last time. And the thing—it isn’t a picture yet—is in the corner here. Hester, dear, just help Miss Lauderdale to take off her hat, won’t you?”
He crossed the room as he spoke, and began to wheel up the easel on which Katharine’s portrait stood. Griggs said nothing, but watched the two women as they stood together, trying to understand the very opposite impressions they made upon him, and wondering with an excess of cynicism which Crowdie thought the more beautiful. For his own part, he fancied that he should prefer Hester’s face and Katharine’s character, as he judged it from her appearance.
Presently Katharine seated herself, trying to assume the pose she had taken at the first sitting. Crowdie disappeared behind the curtain in search of paint and brushes, and Hester sat down on the edge of a huge divan. As there was no chair except Katharine’s, Griggs seated himself on the divan beside Mrs. Crowdie.
“There’s never more than one chair here,” she explained. “It’s for the sitter, or the buyer, or the lion-hunter, according to the time of day. Other people must sit on the divan or on the floor.”
“Yes,” answered Griggs. “I see.”
Katharine did not think the answer a very brilliant one for a man of such reputation. Hitherto she had not had much experience of lions. Crowdie came back with his palette and paints.