“Try,” the Colonel said. “You great beauty you. I love you very much. You and you portrayed on canvas.”
“Tell the waiters if you like. I’m sure it won’t come as a great shock to them.”
“Take the canvas upstairs to my room,” the Colonel said to the concierge. “Thank you very much for bringing it in. If the price is right, I am going to buy it.”
“The price is right,” the girl said to him. “Should we have them take it and the chairs down and make a special showing of it for your compatriot? The Gran Maestro could tell him the address of the painter and he could visit the picturesque studio.”
“It is a very lovely portrait,” the Gran Maestro said. “But it should be taken to the room. One should never let Roederer or Perrier-Jouet do the talking.”
“Take it to the room, please.”
“You said please without a pause before it.”
“Thank you,” the Colonel said. “I am very deeply moved by the portrait and I am not entirely responsible for what I say.”
“Let’s neither of us be responsible.”
“Agreed,” the Colonel said. “The Gran Maestro is really very responsible. He always was.”
“No,” the girl said. “I think he did not only from responsibility but from malice. We all have malice, you know, of some kind or another in this town. I think perhaps he did not want the man to have even a journalist’s look into happiness.”
“Whatever that is.”
