Presently with almost disconcerting suddenness, he came out from the green stillness of the bananas on to a bare hill-side. A little below him, to one side of a path that zig-zagged down the side of a hill, a man sat painting at an easel.
His back was to Llewellyn, who saw only the powerful line of shoulders outlined beneath the thin yellow shirt and a broad-brimmed battered felt hat stuck on the back of the painter’s head.
Llewellyn descended the path. As he drew abreast, he slackened speed, looking with frank interest at the work proceeding on the canvas. After all, if a painter settled himself by what was evidently a well-trodden path, it was clear that he had no objection to being overlooked.
It was a vigorous bit of work, painted in strong bands of colour, laid on with an eye to broad effect, rather than detail. It was a pleasing piece of craftsmanship, though without deep significance.
The painter turned his head sideways and smiled.
“Not my life work,” he said cheerfully. “Just a hobby.”
He was a man of perhaps between forty and fifty, with dark hair just tinged with grey. He was handsome, but Llewellyn was conscious not so much of his good looks as of the charm and magnetism of his personality. There was a warmth to him, a kindly radiating vitality that made him a person who, if met only once, would not easily be forgotten.
“It s extraordinary,” said the painter meditatively, “the pleasure it gives one to squeeze out rich, luscious colours on to a palette and splash ’em all over a canvas! Sometimes one knows what one’s trying to do, and sometimes one doesn’t, but the pleasure is always there.” He gave a quick upward glance. “You’re not a painter?”
“No. I just happen to be staying here.”
“I see.” The other laid a streak of rose colour unexpectedly on the blue of his sea. “Funny,” he said. “That looks good. I thought it might. Inexplicable!”
He dropped his brush on to the palette, sighed, pushed his dilapidated hat farther back on his head, and turned slightly sideways to get a better view of his companion. His eyes narrowed in sudden interest.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but aren’t you Dr. Llewellyn Knox?”
2
There was a moment’s swift recoil, not translated into physical motion, before Llewellyn said tonelessly:
“That’s so.”
He was aware a moment later of how quick the other man’s perceptions were.
“Stupid of me,” he said. “You had a breakdown in health, didn’t you? And I suppose you came here to get away from people. Well, you needn’t worry. Americans seldom come to the island, the local inhabitants aren’t interested in anybody but their own cousins and their cousins’ cousins, and the births, deaths and marriages of same, and I don’t count. I live here.”
He shot a quick glance at the other.
“That surprise you?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Why?”
“Just to live-I should not have thought you would be contented with that.”
“You’re right, of course. I didn’t come here originally to live. I was left a big estate here by a great-uncle of mine. It was in rather a bad way when I took it on. Gradually it’s beginning to prosper. Interesting.” He added: “My name’s Richard Wilding.”
Llewellyn knew the name; traveller, writer-a man of varied interests and widely diffused knowledge in many spheres, archaeology, anthropology, entomology. He had heard it said of Sir Richard Wilding that there was no subject of which he had not some knowledge, yet withal he never pretended to be a professional. The charm of modesty was added to his other gifts.
“I have heard of you, of course,” said Llewellyn. “Indeed, I have enjoyed several of your books very much indeed.”
“And I, Dr. Knox, have attended your meetings-one of them; that is to say, at Olympia a year and a half ago.”
Llewellyn looked at him in some surprise.
“That seems to surprise you,” said Wilding, with a quizzical smile.
“Frankly, it does. Why did you come, I wonder?”
“To be frank, I came to scoff, I think.”
“That does not surprise me.”
“It doesn’t seem to annoy you, either.”