Page:Tales of the Unexpected (1924).djvu/226

 pursed his mouth, and wiped the colour off his face with his hand.

Then the red eye opened again, with a sound like the opening of lips, and the face smiled. 'That was rather hasty of you,' said the picture.

Harringay states that, now that the worst had happened, his self-possession returned. He had a saving persuasion that devils were reasonable creatures.

'Why do you keep moving about then,' he said, 'making faces and all that—sneering and squinting, while I am painting you?'

'I don't,' said the picture.

'You do,' said Harringay.

'It's yourself,' said the picture.

'It's not myself,' said Harringay.

'It is yourself,' said the picture. 'No! don't go hitting me with paint again, because it's true. You have been trying to fluke an expression on my face all the morning. Really, you haven't an idea what your picture ought to look like.'

'I have,' said Harringay.

'You have not,' said the picture: 'You never have with your pictures. You always start with the vaguest presentiment of what you are going to do; it is to be something beautiful—you are sure of that—and devout, perhaps, or tragic; but beyond that it is all experiment and chance. My dear fellow! you don't think you can paint a picture like that?'

Now it must be remembered that for what follows we have only Harringay's word.

'I shall paint a picture exactly as I like,' said Harringay calmly.

This seemed to disconcert the picture a little. 'You can't paint a picture without an inspiration,' it remarked.

'But I had an inspiration—for this.'

'Inspiration!' sneered the sardonic figure; 'a fancy