carrying it in its big frame, much as a ship moves when she is carrying too much sail.
“Get two chairs,” the Colonel said to the second waiter, “and put them there. See that the canvas does not touch the chairs. And hold it so it does not slip.”
Then to the girl he said, “We’ll have to change that frame.”
“I know,” she said. “It was not my choice. Take it unframed with you and we’ll choose a good frame next week. Now look at it. Not at the frame. At what it says, or does not say, of me.”
It was a beautiful portrait; neither cold, nor snobbish, nor stylised, nor modern. It was the way you would want your girl painted if Tintoretto were still around and, if he were not around, you settled for Velasquez. It was not the way either of them painted. It was simply a splendid portrait painted, as they sometimes are, in our time.
“It’s wonderful,” the Colonel said. “It is truly lovely.”
The concierge and the second waiter were holding it, and looking at it around the edges. The Gran Maestro was admiring fully. The American, two tables down, was looking at it with his journalistic eyes, wondering who painted it. The back of the canvas was to the other diners.
“It is wonderful,” the Colonel said. “But you can’t give me that.”
“I already have,” the girl said. “I’m sure my hair was never that long over my shoulders.”
“I think it probably was.”
“I could try to let it get that long if you want.”
