I do not know what put it into my head to ask:
“I say, have you by any chance run across a painter called Charles Strickland?”
“You don’t mean to say you know him?” cried Stroeve.
“Beast,” said his wife.
Stroeve laughed.
“Ma pauvre chèrie.” He went over to her and kissed both her hands. “She doesn’t like him. How strange that you should know Strickland!”
“I don’t like bad manners,” said Mrs. Stroeve.
Dirk, laughing still, turned to me to explain.
“You see, I asked him to come here one day and look at my pictures. Well, he came, and I showed him everything I had.” Stroeve hesitated a moment with embarrassment. I do not know why he had begun the story against himself; he felt an awkwardness at finishing it. “He looked at—at my pictures, and he didn’t say anything. I thought he was reserving his judgment till the end. And at last I said: ‘There, that’s the lot!’ He said: ‘I came to ask you to lend me twenty francs.’”
“And Dirk actually gave it him,” said his wife indignantly.