‘I wouldn’t,’ said Troy. ‘Break the line up. But I’ve told you I know nothing about this stuff. I’m a painter. Why did you come and plant yourself here, may I ask?’

‘Thought you wouldn’t mind.’ His voice was muffled and faintly Cockney. ‘I’ll be clearing out in a fortnight. I wanted somewhere to work.’

‘So you said in your extraordinary note. Are you broke?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where are you going in a fortnight?’

‘London. I’ve got a room to work in.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Somewhere in the East End, I think. It’s an old warehouse. I know a bloke who got them to let me use it. He’s going to let me have the address. I’ll go for a week’s holiday somewhere before I begin work in London. I’ll cast this thing there and then start on the sculping.’

‘Who’s going to pay for the stone?’

‘They’ll advance me enough for that.’

‘I see. It’s coming along very well. Now attend to me, Garcia.’ Troy lowered her voice. ‘While you’re here you’ve got to behave yourself. You know what I mean?’

‘No.’

‘Yes, you do. No nonsense with women. You and Sonia seem to be sitting in each other’s pockets. Have you been living together?’ ‘When you’re hungry,’ said Garcia, ‘you eat.’

‘Well, this isn’t a restaurant and you’ll please remember that. You understand? I noticed you making some sort of advance to Seacliff yesterday. That won’t do, either. I won’t have any bogus Bohemianism, or free love, or mere promiscuity at Tatler’s End. It shocks the servants, and it’s messy. All right?’

‘OK,’ said Garcia with a grin.

‘The pose has altered,’ said Katti Bostock from the middle of the studio.

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Watt Hatchett. The others looked coldly at him. His Sydney accent was so broad as to be almost comic. One wondered if he could be doing it on purpose. It was not the custom at Troy’s for new people to speak until they were spoken to. Watt was quite unaware of this and Troy, who hated rows, felt uneasy about him. He was so innocently impossible. She went to Katti’s easel and looked from the bold drawing in black paint to the model. Then she went up to the throne and shoved Sonia’s right shoulder down.

‘Keep it on the floor.’

‘It’s a swine of a pose, Miss Troy.’

‘Well, stick it a bit longer.’

Troy began to go round the work, beginning with Ormerin on the extreme left.

‘Bit tied up, isn’t it?’ she said after a minute’s silence.

‘She is never for one moment still,’ complained Ormerin. ‘The foot moves, the shoulders are in a fidget continually. It is impossible for me to work—impossible.’

‘Start again. The pose is right now. Get it down directly. You can do it.’