Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/123

Rh dots. Garth imprisoned his crabs in a pen of stones and, climbing up the rock, sat down behind the Count. He looked very earnestly at the work of art, to which a number of spiral white lines were being added in various places. He looked up at the reach of blue, glittering water; the hazy pattern of mainland, in buff and green and orange; the clean-cut shape of the Ailouros, luminously white in the sunshine. He looked soberly at the face of the unconscious artist, and then he went back to the crabs.

Joan also studied the painting and observed the painter from farther away. He was a tall lithe man, with a square face illuminated by a flaming intensity of purpose in the deep-set eyes. His hair was black, and a faint moustache darkened his upper lip. Joan fancied him a perfect representative of "the true Slavic type," as she conceived it.

Jim, who had been standing with Elspeth at the door for some minutes, now strolled down and looked over the Count's shoulder.

"Neo-vorticism?" he inquired softly.

The Russian started and turned quickly, with ill-concealed amazement in the look he gave this extraordinary lightkeeper.

"Or is it cubo-futurism?" Jim ventured.