Beaton roared out, "Come in!" as he always did to a knock if he had not a
model; if he had a model he set the door slightly ajar, and with his
palette on his thumb frowned at his visitor and told him he could not
come in. Dryfoos fumbled about for the knob in the dim passageway
outside, and Beaton, who had experience of people's difficulties with it,
suddenly jerked the door open. The two men stood confronted, and at first
sight of each other their quiescent dislike revived. Each would have been
willing to turn away from the other, but that was not possible. Beaton
snorted some sort of inarticulate salutation, which Dryfoos did not try
to return; he asked if he could see him alone for a minute or two, and
Beaton bade him come in, and swept some paint-blotched rags from the
chair which he told him to take. He noticed, as the old man sank
tremulously into it, that his movement was like that of his own father,
and also that he looked very much like Christine. Dryfoos folded his
hands tremulously on the top of his horn-handled stick, and he was rather
finely haggard, with the dark hollows round his black eyes and the fall
of the muscles on either side of his chin. He had forgotten to take his
soft, wide-brimmed hat off; and Beaton felt a desire to sketch him just
as he sat.
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