After he had drunk his cup of black coffee, he wiped his lips slowly with a napkin, motioned to his servant to wait, and going over to the table, sat down and wrote two letters.
- One he put in his pocket,
- the other he handed to the valet.
“Take this round to 152, Hertford Street, Francis, and if Mr. Campbell is out of town, get his address.”
As soon as he was alone, he lit a cigarette and began sketching upon a piece of paper, drawing first flowers and bits of architecture, and then human faces.
Suddenly he remarked that every face that he drew seemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward.
He frowned, and getting up, went over to the bookcase and took out a volume at hazard. He was determined that he would not think about what had happened until it became absolutely necessary that he should do so.
When he had stretched himself on the sofa, he looked at the title-page of the book. It was Gautier’s Emaux et Camees , Charpentier’s Japanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etching. The binding was of citron-green leather, with a design of gilt trelliswork and dotted pomegranates. It had been given to him by Adrian Singleton. As he turned over the pages, his eye fell on the poem about the hand of Lacenaire, the cold yellow hand “ du supplice encore mal lavée ,” with its downy red hairs and its “ doigts de faune .” He glanced at his own white taper fingers, shuddering slightly in spite of himself, and passed on, till he came to those lovely stanzas upon Venice:
Sur une gamme chromatique, Le sein de perles ruisselant, La Vénus de l’Adriatique Sort de l’eau son corps rose et