‘Your eye? Oh, you’ll easily get a fresh one. Do you go home for the exhibitions?’
‘I did once,’ I confessed. ‘My first leave. A kind of paralysis overtakes one here. Last time I went for the grouse.’
He glanced at me with his light clear eyes as if for the first time he encountered a difficulty.
‘It’s a magnificent country for painting,’ he said.
‘But not for pictures,’ I rejoined. He paid no attention, staring at the ground and twisting one end of his moustache.
‘The sun on those old marble tombs—broad sun and sand—’
‘You mean somewhere about Delhi.’
‘I couldn’t get anywhere near it.’ He was not at that moment anywhere near me. ‘But I have thought out a trick or two—I mean to have another go when it cools off again down there.’ He returned with a smile, and I saw how delicate his face was. The smile turned down with a little gentle mockery in its lines. I had seen that particular smile only on the faces of one or two beautiful women. It had a borrowed air upon a man, like a tiara or an earring.
‘There’s plenty to paint,’ he said, looking at me with an air of friendly speculation.
‘Indeed, yes. And it has never been done. We are sure it has never been done.’