All this sounded delightful. Then in a few minutes the speaking-tube whistled, and a message was called up to know if Mr. Cunninghame Graham might come up.
“Do you object?” asked Mr. Lavery, “Because he knows you are sitting to me, and said he would like to come if he might.”
“Not in the least,” I replied; “I should like it.”
Cunninghame Graham in the capacity of chaperon was a novel experience.
So up he came, and took a seat immediately behind the artist so that my eyes should not wander from the right direction for the picture. Was there ever a greater contrast than those two men? Lavery, short and broad, with ruddy cheeks, dark hair, and little, round, twinkling black eyes full of life and verve, and the calm aristocratic, artistic Cunninghame Graham, who always looks exactly like a Velasquez picture, so perfect is he in drawing and colouring.
Mr. Lavery has a curious arrangement for his palette. There is a table at his right hand, upon which a palette slants as on a desk. It is about three feet by two in size, and can hold a large number of colours.
HALF-HOUR SKETCH OF AUTHOR BY JOHN LAVERY, R. A. EXHIBITED FAIR WOMEN EXHIBITION, LONDON, 1910
“I require lots of paint and lots of room to splash about, and I like the table arrangement; it is, in fact, the only way I can work,” he remarked.