“Cecil Crichton?” echoed the other. “No ... and yet it sounds familiar. Perhaps I am thinking of the Admirable, though he wasn’t Cecil, as far as I remember. The old story, I suppose. Cecil Crichton—ah, Cyril Crichton?” he repeated. Then, dismissing the subject somewhat brutally, “Ah, well, it’s no business of mine! Will you give me a light? Thanks!”
CHAPTER VII
At three o’clock Lightmark dismissed his model—an Italian, with a wonderfully fine torso and admirable capabilities for picturesque pose, whom he had easily persuaded to abandon his ice-cream barrow to sit for him two or three times a week, acting the part of studio servant in the intervals.
“That will do, Cesare,” he said, “aspetto persone; besides, you’re shivering: I shall have you catching cold next, and I can’t paint while you’re sneezing. Yes, you’re quite right, e un freddo terribile, considering that it’s July. Off with you now, and come again at the same time on Friday. Si conservi—that’s to say, don’t get drunk in the interval; it makes you look such a brute that I can’t paint you.”
While the model transformed himself from a scantily-attired Roman gladiator into an Italian of the ordinary Saffron Hill description, Lightmark hastily washed his brushes, turned down his shirt sleeves, and donned the becoming velvet painting-jacket, which Mrs. Dollond had so much admired.
“I hope they won’t notice Cesare’s pipe,” he said anxiously. “Even though he doesn’t smoke here, it always seems to hang about. Perhaps I had better open the window and burn a pastille. And now, are we prepared to receive Philistia? Yes, I don’t think the place looks bad, and—but perhaps Mrs. Sylvester mightn’t like the gladiator. He certainly is deucedly anatomical at present. I’ll go and leave him in Copal’s studio, and then I can borrow his tea-things at the same time.”
The studio was a lofty room on the ground-floor with an elaborately-devised skylight, and a large window facing north, through which a distant glimpse of Holland Park could be obtained. Lightmark had covered the floor with pale Indian matting, with a bit of strong colour, here and there, in the shape of a modern Turkish rug. For furniture, he had picked up some old chairs and a large straight-backed settee with grotesquely-carved legs, which, with the aid of a judicious arrangement of drapery, looked eminently attractive, and conveyed an impression of comfort which closer acquaintance did not altogether belie. Then there was the platform, covered with dark cloth, on which his models posed; the rickety table with many drawers, in which he kept brushes and colours; a lay figure, disguised as a Venetian flower-girl, which had collapsed tipsily into a corner; two or three easels; and a tall, stamped leather screen, which was useful for backgrounds. A few sketches, mostly unframed, stood in a row on the narrow shelf