“No objection to that!” said Garstin, with a mischievous smile. “But if you don’t like your picture you won’t want to have it. So let us consider our bargain cancelled.”
“Oh, no,” said Arabian, “the picture is mine.”
“The bargain we made,” said Garstin, turning to Sir Seymour, “was this: Mr. Arabian was to be kind enough to sit to me on two conditions. One was in my favour, the other in his.”
“I beg your pardon!” said Arabian sharply.
But Garstin continued inflexibly:
“I was to have the right to exhibit the picture, and, after that, I was to hand it over as a present to Arabian.”
“No, that was not the bargain, please!” said Arabian.
“Not the bargain?” said Garstin, with an air of humorous surprise.
“Oh, no. You kindly said that if I gave up my time to you, as I have done, very much of my time, you would give me the picture when it was finished. That was the bargain between us. But I did not say I would allow you to exhibit my picture.”
“But I told you before I ever put a smudge of paint on the canvas that I should want to exhibit it.”