She spoke with a touch of irritation. Somehow things seemed to be going vaguely wrong for her to-night.
“I suppose I am not near enough to the gutter yet,” she added.
“You’re too much of the out-of-door type for me,” said Garstin, looking at her with almost fierce attention. “There isn’t a line about you except now and then in your forehead just above the nose. And even that only comes from bad temper.”
“Really, Dick,” said Miss Van Tuyn, “you are absurd. It’s putting your art into a strait waistcoat only to paint Cafe Royal types. But if you want lines Lady Sellingworth ought to sit for you.”
Her mind that night could not detach itself from Lady Sellingworth. In the midst of the noise, and crush, and strong light of the cafe she continually imagined a spacious, quiet, and dimly lit room, very calm, very elegant, faintly scented with flowers; she continually visualized two figures near together, talking quietly, earnestly, confidentially. Why had she allowed Jennings to lead her astray? She might have been in that spacious room, too, if she had not been stupid.
“I want to ask you something about Lady Sellingworth,” she continued. “Come a little nearer.”
Garstin shifted his chair.
“But I don’t know her,” he said, rumpling his hair with an air of boredom. “An old society woman! What’s the good of that to me? What have I to do with dowagers? Bow wow dowagers! Even Rembrandt—”
“Now, Dick, don’t be a bore! If you would only listen occasionally, instead of continually—”
“Go ahead, young woman! And bend down a little more. Why don’t you take off your hat?”