"
At dinner he said little; but I didn't mind that. I had known him for
years, and had always found something soothing and companionable in his
long abstentions from speech. His silence was never unsocial; it was bland
as a natural hush; one felt one's self included in it, not left out. He
stroked his beard and gazed absently at me; and when we had finished our
coffee and liqueurs we strolled down to his studio.
At the studio--which was less draped, less posed, less consciously
"artistic" than those of the smaller men--he handed me a cigar, and fell
to smoking before the fire. When he began to talk it was of indifferent
matters, and I had dismissed the hope of hearing more of Vard's portrait,
when my eye lit on a photograph of the picture. I walked across the room
to look at it, and Lillo presently followed with a light.
"It certainly is a complete disguise," he muttered over my shoulder; then
he turned away and stooped to a big portfolio propped against the wall.
"Did you ever know Miss Vard?" he asked, with his head in the portfolio;
and without waiting for my answer he handed me a crayon sketch of a girl's
profile.
I had never seen a crayon of Lillo's, and I lost sight of the sitter's
personality in the interest aroused by this new aspect of the master's
complex genius. The few lines--faint, yet how decisive!--flowered out of
the rough paper with the lightness of opening petals. It was a mere hint
of a picture, but vivid as some word that wakens long reverberations in
the memory.
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