“That’s what I want to look,” said Herbert, laughing. “It makes pretty women pet you and hold your hand. Why, in Italy I was the envy of all the cavaliers. Per Dio, this is a change!” he exclaimed, as he entered the fashionable studio. “Do you remember the time you came to me and wanted to borrow tenpence, or something? Ha, ha, ha! Not that I’m surprised, old boy, not a bit. I’ve heard your name come up quite half a dozen times in the few days I’ve been back in stony old London. No, thanks, I’ll sit on the couch. It’s cooler there. And I won’t have any cold tea in this frightfully hot weather. I’m still faithful to soda-and-whiskey, if you’ve got any.”
“Lots,” said Mr. Strang. “A cigar?”
“Not before dinner, thanks. I don’t mind a cigarette. But I’m not interrupting your work?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, old fellow. The idea of my turning you away!”
“Well, considering you nearly did it! But you’re a celebrity now. Your time’s valuable.”
“Oh, but I’ve struck work for to-day.”
“What, with all this light left? This is indeed a change from the tenpenny days.”
“Yes, I suppose one gets tired,” the painter sighed. “Do you like Turkish or Egyptians?”
“In cigarettes Turkish, in women Egyptians,” he answered, laconically. “But what a joke to find you tired of painting! You’re beginning to feel like I felt, eh? That it’s one demnition grind. And I’m tired of travelling, and wouldn’t mind doing a little painting now, ha, ha, ha! How funnily things do turn out, to be sure. Why, you’ve changed inside almost as much as outside,” he said, looking up languidly into his host’s face, as he selected a cigarette from the box. “I wonder if I should have recognized you if I had met you in the streets instead of tracking the lion to his own den. I shouldn’t have thought half a dozen years would have made such a difference.”
“Half a dozen years! It’s nearer ten since we met.”