“What do you think of the fellow?” he said. “After all, you asked me to paint him. What do you think of him?”
“I think he’s magnificently handsome.”
“Blast his envelope!” Garstin almost roared out. “What do you think of his nature? What do you think of his soul? I’m not a painter of surfaces.”
Miss Van Tuyn sat for a moment looking steadily at him. She was unusually natural and unself-conscious, like one thinking too strongly to bother about herself. At last she said:
“Arabian is a very difficult man to understand, and I don’t understand him.”
“Do you like him?”
“I couldn’t exactly say that.”
“Do you hate him?”
“No.”
Garstin suddenly looked almost maliciously sly.