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'No, I suppose it is not easy to make up one's mind straight away.'

'You have to live with a picture before you can say whether you really like it.'

'I can see how that might be.' René nodded his head sagely.

René stood gazing at the tongue protruding from the mouth of the victim. Meanwhile, the happy possessor of the picture stood in profile, the one eye amusedly and with infinite knowingness simmering away all to itself. As René turned to speak to him he had the mental comment, as his eye fixed itself upon the profile, 'Un Ensor, sapristi!'

'I must say I rather take to this,' he declared aloud.

'You like it? I am glad of that. I find I like it more and more.'

'It does grow on one,' the other agreed. René moved down the room to where he thought he saw a new Marie Laurençin. Laurençin heads all resemble one another to such a degree that anyone not an expert may well find it difficult to say which is which.

'I have not seen this one, have I, Percy?'

'"Clothilde"? . . . Yes, you have often seen the "Clothilde". It used to hang in the dining-room not far from the door. I mean on the same side as the door. I think it is wonderful.'