fining the form of her black velvet gown was inadequate in suggesting the nuances of the hollow between her diaphragm and narrow flat belly. A sixteenth less at the left waist would have done it, with perhaps a balancing readjustment of the right shoulder. He knew her better now, at least calligraphically. The mat of Simone's skin, her narrow high shoulders, her characteristic poses, which were not calculated but a kind of period at the end of each high-strung sentencelike movement, made her easy to capture in line. Though one had to struggle to avoid relating her to the evocative exaggerations of Lautrec, or to the flat designs of the contemporary Paris school. But Lucy, now observing him solemnly with slanting inquisitive eyes, was another matter. One could draw her curve for curve and never achieve more than an approximation. One could capture a composite of Simone's many-sided yet related aspects by this and that exaggeration. But this beauty! Even the expert Fragonard would have been hard put to it to evoke the precocity of that face. The Sung Chinese knew how to suggest beauty with their understatements washed on silk. Pity this unbroken Nereid drenched in musky perfume would in time be housebroken into the stuffed-shirt world of Bigelow, who addressed the barman at Jack's as "my good man."
Lucy watched his pen sputter under the staccato pressure of his nervous fingers. "Why don't you draw something pretty?" she asked and wished she hadn't as he might think she was hinting.
With his left little finger he pulled a sputter into a toga and with the fingernail of his right drew a crown before he looked at her.
"To tell you the truth—because." He had been a little taken aback by her mind-reading. It delighted him to see her stare at him with childlike puzzlement because he had used her own repetitive phrase. Her humorlessness in contrast to the frequent piquancy of her remarks made her seem at the same time younger and older than Figente said she was, adding somehow an ageless provocative quality which made her more than just another beautiful girl.
"Besides," she defied his fresh reply, "I don't see why you dress him like a Greek king. He's too fat to wear a costume like that."
"I am not!" Figente protested. "A short tunic becomes me. My legs are very good."
"I was only improvising on the Shakespearean theme, a kind of Midsummer Night's Dream," Vermillion contributed mildly.
It made no sense to Lucy, though Figente seemed annoyed.
