Carrington's voice betrayed some concern, for he took a friendly interest in my career.
"The title--a mere label--suggests it. But nothing of the sort. I am going to paint a portrait of Manon--and of her ilk."
Carrington smoked on, stretched comfortably in a chair. His feet were on another chair, and the broad soles of his slippers so displayed implied ease and intimacy.
"It will look like the portrait of an actress in character; a costume picture," he said, presently; "the label isn't suggestive to me."
"There will, I promise you, be no trace of commonplace realism in it. It will be Velasquez dashed with Watteau. Can you realize the modest flight of my imagination? Seriously, Carrington, I intend to paint a masterpiece. I intend to paint a woman who would sell her soul for pleasure--a conscienceless, fascinating egotist--a corrupt charmer--saved by a certain _naïveté_. The eighteenth century, in fact, _en grisette_."
"Manon rather redeemed herself at the end, if I remember rightly," Carrington observed.
"Or circumstances redeemed her, if you will. She had a heart, perhaps; it never made her uncomfortable. Her love was of the doubtful quality that flies out of the window as want comes in at the door. Oh! she was a sweet little _scélérate_. I shall paint the type--the little _scélérate_."
"Well, of course, everything would depend on the treatment."
"Everything. I am going to astonish you there, Carrington."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Carrington said, good-humouredly.
"I see already the golden gray of her dim white boudoir; the satins, the laces, the high-heeled shoes, the rigid little waist, and face of pretty depravity. The face is the thing--the key. Where find the face? I think of a trip to Paris on purpose. One sees the glancing creature--such as I have in my mind--there, now and then. I want a fresh pallor, and gay, lazy eyes--light-brown, not too large."
"I fancy I know of someone," Carrington said, meditatively. "Not that she's _dans le caractère_," he added: "not at all; anything but depraved. But--her face; you could select." Carrington mused. "The line of her cheek is, I remember, mockingly at variance with her staid innocence of look."
"Who is she? Manon could _look_ innocent, you know--was so, after a fashion. I should like a touch of childish _insouciance_. Who is she, and how can I get her?"