“Have you ever seen him before to-night?”
“Yes. I saw him last night.”
“For the first time?”
“Yes.”
“At the Cafe Royal?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think he is?”
“Probably a successful blackmailer.”
For some obscure reason Miss Van Tuyn felt outraged by this opinion of Garstin.
“The fact is,” she said, but in quite an impersonal voice, “that your mind is getting warped by living always among the scum of London, and by studying and painting only the scum. It really is a great pity. A painter ought to be a man of the world, not a man of the underworld.”