"Julie should have been a stage-manager," he said. "Her scenic instinct is remarkable. She sees Craig's place peopled with a fashionable portrait-painter's clientele, and has set her properties accordingly. His Italian finds,—his tapestries, his old furniture, his Pompeian bronzes,—the new grand piano, and the various other newnesses, all present themselves as background for society drama. I take off my hat to her. She, too, is an artist, an artist of imagination. It is all perfectly done. Nothing lacks but the fashionable portrait-painter."
"And the drama?" Jean suggested.
"Oh, that is being looked after. She plans a house-warming of some sort. You haven't been consulted?"
"No."
"Neither has Craig, I dare say. Perhaps the idea only took shape while she talked with me. I can't give you the technical name of the function, but it will be worthy of the manager's reputation. The scheme is to get Mrs. Joyce-Reeves's portrait, Miss Hepworth's, and mine—yes, mine!—before as many as possible of the opulent beings who itch to hand their empty faces down to posterity. By the way, I want to see the Hepworth portrait."
She took him to the billiard-room and brought the unfinished picture to the easel. MacGregor turned off a warring light, chose a view-point, bestrode a chair, and lapsed into a long silence. Jean tried to read his rugged face, but finding it inscrutable, herself studied the canvas. Fuller knowledge of Craig's sitter had failed to reveal the qualities of mind he found so stimulating; but now, confronting the immobile counterfeit, she hit with disturbing certainty upon the truth that Virginia Hepworth's appeal was physical, and to men as men.
A moment afterward MacGregor confirmed her intuition.
"I don't know her any better," he said. "Outwardly she is the same neurotic creature I've seen all along. Apathetic with other women, she stirs to life and takes her tints from the particular male with whom she chances to be. Craig has missed an opportunity to dissect a chameleon."
"You think it's a failure!"
"Psychologically, I do; technically, no. In color, texture, it is masterly. Don't distress yourself about its success; it will be only too successful. I think it will even have the bad luck to be popular."