"He looks to me like the fatty who fiddled while Rome burned."
"Better to burn than marry," retorted waspishly Oberon-Figente to Vermillion.
The painter laughed at the twisting of St. Paul's admonition, and tore up the drawing which had been only the result of the suggestion of an ink blob on the back of an envelope while making note of a suddenly remembered errand.
"Let this be a lesson to you never to interrupt an artist. You have deprived me of a record of one of my many facets," Figente said reprovingly to Lucy.
"I must go," Vermillion said suddenly.
He always left this way, just when she was beginning to know him better, Lucy thought, provoked. "He looks very poor—that shabby old blue Norfolk," she remarked to Figente.
"Don't deride that Norfolk. He had it on the first time I saw him. He bought it from an English tailor in Gibraltar. The pockets attracted him."
"They're always jammed."
"Sketchbooks—and memoranda on scraps of paper he can't read later."
"But all those places he's been—he certainly gets around for someone poor."
"Works his way—he worked his passage to Europe on a cargo ship."
"With those hands! You know what, in some ways he seems very innocent. What does an experienced woman like that Simone see in him, he's so young?"
"My dear child, innocence can be very attractive. It was what attracted you to me. When you are a little older you will perceive its lure. Also that what one individual sees in another is an intangible. Sometimes a Galatea molds a Pygmalion to her needs. Simone therefore sees him, knowing herself."
"Maybe I'd better take another look."
"Leave him alone!" Figente said peremptorily.
"For heaven's sake, I won't bite him." She looked at him mischievously. "I think Hal is more my type. How would you like it if I stole Hal from you?"
"Hal doesn't like girls."
"How do you know?"
"You really are very naughty!"
