She stood before him now with her arms up, hands joined behind her head. This impulse to take her clothes off had the cultural hygienic touch so familiar to him. The Naples yellow of the hair was the same colour as Bertha’s, only it was coarser and thicker, Bertha’s being fine. Anastasya’s dark face, therefore, had the appearance almost of a mask.
“Will you engage me as your model? Je fais de la réclame pour les Grecs.”
“You are very Ionian—hardly Greek. But I don’t require a model. I never use nude models.”
“Well, I must dress again, I suppose.” She turned towards a chair where her clothes were piled. But Tarr had learnt the laws of cultural emancipation.
He shouted, “I accept, I accept!” He lifted her up in his arms, kissing her in the mass, as it were, and carried her through the door at the back of the studio leading to his bedroom.
“Tarr, be my love. I don’t want to give you up.”
This was said next morning, the sunlight having taken the place of the moonlight, but striking on the opposite side of the house.
“You won’t hear marriage talked about by me. I want to rescue you from your Bertha habits. Allow yourself to be rescued! We’re very well together, aren’t we? I’m not doing Bertha a bad turn, either, really. I admit my motive is quite selfish. What do you say?”
“I am your slave!”
Anastasya rolled up against him with the movement of a seal.