“Friends of his?”
“I don’t think so. He said they came and sat down at his table in the cafe and started talking. I suggested the poker. They didn’t. So it wasn’t a plant.”
“Perhaps he isn’t bad,” she said; “and perhaps that’s why you can’t paint him.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean because you have made up your mind that he is. I think you have a fixed idea about that.”
“What?”
“You have painted so many brutes, that you seek for the brute in everyone who sits to you. If you were to paint me you’d—”
“Now, now! There you are at it again! I’ll paint you if I ever feel like it—not a minute before.”
“I was only going to say that if you ever painted me you’d try to find something horrible in me that you could drag to the surface.”
“Well, d’you mean that you have the toupet to tell me there is nothing horrible in you?”