“But Mr. Saunders, you said yourself you wanted the picture out of here and that it was for sale.”
“That was all balls,” Bobby said. “That was when we were having fun.”
“Then the picture is not for sale.”
“No. The picture is not for sale, rent, nor charter.”
“Well,” said the man. “Here is my card in case it ever is for sale.”
“That’s fine,” said Bobby. “Tom may have some up at his place he wants to sell. What about it, Tom?”
“I don’t think so,” Thomas Hudson said.
“I’d like to come up and see them,” the man told him.
“I’m not showing anything now,” Thomas Hudson answered. “I’ll give you the address of the gallery in New York if you’d like it.”
“Thank you. Will you write it here?”
The man had a fountain pen with him and he wrote the address on the back of one of his cards and gave another card to Thomas Hudson. Then the man thanked Thomas Hudson again and asked if he might offer him a drink.
“Can you give me any idea about the prices of the larger canvases?”
“No,” Thomas Hudson said. “But the dealer will be able to.”
“I’ll see him as soon as I’m back in town. This canvas is extremely interesting.”
“Thank you,” Thomas Hudson said.
“You’re quite sure it can’t be sold.”
“Jesus,” Bobby said. “Stop it, will you? That’s my picture. I had the idea for it and Tom painted it for me.”
The man looked as though what he had thought of as “the charades” were beginning again so he smiled with much good fellowship.
“I don’t like to be insistent—”
“You’re just about as insistent as a goddam loggerhead,” Bobby told him. “Come on. Have a drink on me and forget it.”
The boys were talking with Roger. “It was pretty good while it lasted, wasn’t it, Mr. Davis?” young Tom asked. “I didn’t overdo it too badly, did I?”
“It was fine,” Roger said. “Dave didn’t have much though.”
“I was just getting ready to be a monster,” David said.
“You’d have killed her, I think,” young Tom said. “She was hurt pretty badly already. Were you going to come up as a monster?”
“I had my eyelids inside out and all ready to come up,” David told them. “I was bent down fixing myself to come up when we stopped.”
“It was bad luck she was such a nice woman,” Andy said. “I hadn’t started to let it have any effect on me yet. I guess now we won’t have any chance to do another one.”
“Wasn’t Mr. Bobby wonderful?” young Tom asked. “Boy, you were swell, Mr. Bobby.”
“Sure was a pity to stop,” Bobby said. “And Constable hadn’t even come in yet. I was just beginning to get worked up. I know just how those great actors must feel.”
The girl came in through the door. As she came in, the wind blew her sweater against her and blew her hair as she turned to Roger.
“She wouldn’t come back. But it’s all right. She’s fine now.”
“Will you have a drink with us?” Roger asked her.
“I’d love to.”
Roger told her all of their names and she said that she was Audrey Bruce.
“Can I come up and see your pictures?”
“Of course,” Thomas Hudson said.
“I’d like to come with Miss Bruce,” the man of persistence said.
“Are you her father?” Roger asked him.
“No. But I’m a very old friend.”
“You can’t come,” Roger said. “You have to wait for Very Old Friends Day. Or get a card from the committee.”
“Please don’t be rude to him,” she said to Roger.
“I’m afraid I have been.”
“Don’t be anymore.”
“Fine.”
“Let’s be pleasant.”
“Good.”
“I liked Tom’s line about that same girl that is in all your books.”
“Did you really like it?” young Tom asked her. “It isn’t really accurate. I was teasing Mr. Davis.”
“I thought it was a little bit accurate.”
“You come up to the house,” Roger told her.
“Do I bring my friends?”
“No.”
“None of them?”
“Do you want them very much?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Around what time of day do I come up to the house?”