But there he was, bending over his colour-box and murmuring "Cobalt—I seem to eat cobalt—raw sienna—orange vermilion——"
Presently I spoke, still from the window.
"Well, I don't know anything about downstairs, but you've a gorgeous view up here."
"Isn't it?" he said. "Grows on you. At first I thought it rather scrappy, a little bit of everything, and I wish they'd put a bomb under that silly château-place; but it grows on you. Inland's the country though. Orange vermilion, pale cadmium, and a double go of cobalt——"
I looked round his room. The smell of oil-colours clung about it, but it was exquisitely tidy and simple. Its walls were covered with a yellowish striped paper, its ceiling beams were moulded, its herring-boned parquet floor shone. A single mat lay by the side of his ornate wooden bedstead, which, with the little night cupboard by it, a small table at the window, and a single upholstered chair, was the only furniture in the room. The door-knob was of glass, and the lace curtains had been draped back over the open leaves of the window. From a flimsy little hat-rack hung his two haversacks. His canvases apparently were in the cupboard that was sunk into the wall.
"Well," he said, putting his list of colours into his pocket, "it seems rather a rum idea bringing you right out here when I've got to go into Dinard myself. Can I have the money, George?"
I counted it out.
"And oh, by the way—I know you won't mind—but if you'd talk French when there's anybody about—it makes things a bit simpler——"
Here I began to be aware of the imminence of another problem. I don't mean the talking French; I mean the whole problem of his company. He was going into Dinard to buy colours, and I also was returning to Dinard. The natural thing was that we should go together. I could hardly constitute myself his guardian and not be seen about with him—bargain with him that he only came to me or I to him like Nicodemus, by night. He seemed to take all this cheerfully for granted.
But whither would it presently lead? Dinard was, in a word, the world—that world in which he had no place. Everybody knew scores of people in Dinard, and Madge Aird hundreds. Tennis, tea, the shops, the plage—all was public, familiar, open in the last degree. Within a couple of days, on the strength of being seen twice or thrice with me, he would be exchanging bows and smiles and "Bonjours" with goodness knows who.