“Sorry you think so! But what’s to be done? That picture is worth from eight hundred to a thousand pounds at the very least. You don’t suppose I am going to give it to you without letting the people who care about my stuff have a look at it? Why, where is your sense of fairness, my boy?”
“I do not know really what you mean by that!”
“Well, I ask you, Sir Seymour, would it be fair that I should have all my trouble for nothing? He can have the picture. But I want my kudos. Eh?”
“I quite understand that,” said Sir Seymour, calmly.
Arabian turned round and faced him. And as he did so Sir Seymour said to himself:
“The fellow’s been drinking heavily.”
This thought had not occurred in his mind till this moment, but he felt certain that Garstin’s sharp eyes had noticed the fact sooner, probably directly they had seen Arabian at the street door. No doubt the very stiff whisky-and-soda Arabian had just drunk had made it more obvious. Anyhow, Sir Seymour had no doubt at all about it now. It was not noticeable in Arabian’s face. But his manner began to show it to the experienced eyes of the old campaigner.
“But, please, do you understand my feeling? Would you like to be made what you are not—a beast?”
Sir Seymour saw Garstin, perhaps with difficulty, shutting off a smile.
“I can’t say I should,” he answered, with absolute gravity.