“I’m Bram. Bram Cardale. I’ve come to stay here. I’m a painter.”

The boy receives this information without a flicker of interest.

How many like me has he seen come and go, Bram wonders. How many hopefuls with their fragile talent and bright ambition?

“Do you know when your father is expected home?” he asks.

The boy shrugs.

“Who can ever know for certain what Mangan will do?” says a voice on the stairs. A woman comes down, her hair the exact color and texture of the boy’s, but worn long, loose and flowing about her shoulders. She is very tall and very beautiful, and her accent gives away German origins. Her skirt is loose and covered in paint, and the shape of her blouse suggests the absence of any sort of corset. She moves with fluid, graceful strides. “Mangan will do whatever Mangan wants to do whenever Mangan pleases,” she says, coming to stand in front of Bram.

Now that she is close to him he can see there is oil paint on her face, too. She takes a slim cheroot from a silver case and puts it in her mouth. “Have you a light?” she asks.

“I’m afraid I don’t smoke.”

“Pity.” She looks him up and down slowly. “Are you as strong as you look?”

Somewhat taken aback Bram says, “That’s a difficult question to answer. How strong do you think I look?”

“Quite. Though you are pretty, too. Or you would be, if you weren’t wearing those terrible clothes.” She makes a despairing gesture at his outfit. “If you keep all those buttons done up in this heat you will surely die, Artist. Do you wish to die young?”

Bram does not know which slight, comment, or question to respond to first. Before he can think of a suitable response the apparition turns and calls up the stairs in her slow, deep voice. “Perry. Come down and meet our new pet artist.”

Bram isn’t sure he likes being described in such a way and thinks he has never met anyone so strange.

But then, he reminds himself, this is London. This is an artist’s home. People do things differently here. I must embrace such freedom, not shy away from it.

Recalling reports of Mangan’s private life, he takes the woman to be his famous mistress from Berlin, a successful painter in her own right. The smaller, plumper one, the boy has confirmed as the sculptor’s wife. Freedom is clearly the mistress’s child. As he hasn’t noticed the vivid red hair on any of the others he assumes them to be Mangan’s legitimate children.

Mrs. Mangan descends the stairs rather breathlessly, followed by a somewhat skinny young man with a kind face and sandy hair.