Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/132

 "She was an artist's model. Sometimes she used to sit for me."

"Are you an artist?" said June, allowing herself to become interested, for the reason perhaps that she simply could not help it.

"Of sorts," was the answer. "I studied several years in Paris before the war."

From the moment he had sat down at the next table and June had been able to get a clear view of him she had somehow known that art was his calling. He looked an artist so emphatically that there would have been something fatally wrong with the cosmos had he turned out to be anything else.

In spite of a determination to be cautious indeed, she was not equal to the task of repressing an ever growing curiosity. Art had lately come to have a magic meaning for her.

"What kind of pictures do you paint?"

"Portraits and the figure chiefly."

"Do you ever paint landscapes?"

"They are not quite my line of country," said the man. "Portraits and the figure are what I go for as a rule. I am looking for a model now. Would you like to sit to me?"

"I don't know." June spoke doubtfully. "I don't think I could."

"Haven't you ever sat?"

"No, I haven't."

"Time you began. You are just the sort of girl."

"Why am I?"

"For one thing you have personality."

This was a surprising and rather thrilling corroboration of Mr. Boultby. At the back of her mind the old