“I’ll clear out in half a second,” he replied, smiling. “I’m bringing you news. You ought to be very grateful to me. I’ve got you a commission.”
“Who’s the fool?” asked Clementina.
“It isn’t a fool,” said Tommy, buttoning the belt of his Norfolk jacket, as if to brace himself to the encounter. “It’s my uncle.”
“Lord save us!” said Clementina.
“I thought I would give you a surprise,” said Tommy.
Clementina shrugged her shoulders and went on squeezing paint out of tubes.
“He must have softening of the brain.”
“Why?”
“First for wanting to have his portrait painted at all, and secondly for thinking of coming to me. Go back and tell him I’m not a caricaturist.”
Tommy planted a painting-stool in the middle of the floor and sat upon it, with legs apart.