VICTOR GOODENOUGH was shown at once into the studio where Santley was
painting the Moncrieff twins. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man in the
middle thirties, who looked as though he would do anything efficiently to
which he set his hand-a well-kept, muscular hand, browner even than his
face, and with the palms calloused by the swinging of golf clubs. He was
a "plus" man. For the rest, he was handsome, with regular features of a
rather wooden type, lit up now and then by a pleasant smile.
The artist was about his age, but belonged to another world. Nervous,
diffident, shy, the youngest R.A. was rarely to be met anywhere but at
his studio out here by Putney Bridge, where he lived as well as worked.
He had a scholarly face, with deep-set, brooding eyes, that looked as
though they would go through life seeking for something just beyond their
vision.
"Good sitters?" Goodenough asked, waving a hand at the two children just
now squirming a welcome to him.
Oliver Santley groaned. He had never tried to paint children before, but
he needed a couple for part of a panel design, and Lavinia Moncrieff had
suggested the twins, Cordelia and Dorothy--Dilly and Dolly in everyday
life--aged five. They were the wards of her husband, Major Moncrieff, and
only distantly related even to him, but they were orphans, and lived with
her and her husband down in the country.
