"Why misguided? It will be a wonderful picture."
"It is that Eastern thing is it not?—the marble pool and a half veiled figure lying beside it with one hand in the water?"
"Yes, but I've had to shelve it. Did I show you that last sketch for the Keats picture?"
"You did, Orlando; but dismiss the idea that I am going to play Phryne to your Apelles. It won't come off. It may work successfully with daft society women who have got bored with pretending to be nurses and ambulance drivers but you really cannot expect Flamby Duveen to begin competing with the professional models. I could quote something from Ovid that would be quite to the point but you wouldn't understand and I should have to laugh all by myself."
"You are a tantalising little devil," said James, his dull brain seeking vainly a clue to the cause of Flamby's obduracy.
Flamby, meanwhile maturing her plan, made the next move. "Is the Keats picture to be more important than The Circassian?" she asked naively.
"Of course," James replied, believing that at last a clue was his. "I have told you that it will be my masterpiece." He had offered an identical assurance to many a hesitant amateur.
"Is your model for The Circassian really very pretty?"
"She is; but of a more ordinary type than you, kid. You are simply a nymph in human shape. You will send the critics crazy."
He watched her with scarcely veiled eagerness, and Flamby, placing the end of her cigarette in a silver ash-tray, seemed to be thinking.