The second portrait Jasper Gwyn made was for a woman of forty, single, who after studying architecture was now occupied with an import-export business with India. Fabrics, handicrafts, occasionally the work of an artist. She lived with an Italian woman, in a loft on the outskirts of London. Jasper Gwyn made an effort to convince her that it wasn’t suitable to keep her cell phone on and to arrive late every day. She learned quickly, and without apparent irritation. It was evident that she very much liked being naked and being looked at. She was thin, as if her body had been consumed by some unmet expectation, and had dark skin that had bright, animal highlights. She was loaded with bracelets, necklaces, rings, which she never took off and which she changed every day. After ten days Jasper Gwyn asked if she could come without all that junk on (he didn’t describe it in those terms) and she said she would try. The next day she was completely naked, with the exception of a silver ankle bracelet. When it came time to talk she couldn’t do it without pacing back and forth, and gesticulating as if words were always imprecise and needed an apparatus of physical footnotes. Jasper Gwyn ventured to ask her if she had ever been in love with a woman and she said Never but then she added, Do you want the truth? Jasper Gwyn said that there was rarely one truth.
When the last light bulb went out, she was staring at it, hypnotized. In the darkness Jasper Gwyn heard her laughing, nervously. Thank you, Miss Croner, you were perfect, he said. She got dressed, she had just a light dress, that day, and a small purse. She took out a brush and smoothed her hair, which she knew was nice and she wore long. Then, in the afternoon light that filtered faintly through the shutters, she went up to Jasper Gwyn and said it had been an incomprehensible experience. She was so close that Jasper Gwyn could have done what for days he had longed to do, but just out of curiosity—touch those highlights on her skin. He was convincing himself that he shouldn’t when she kissed him on the lips, rapidly, and went off.
Miss Croner got her portrait in exchange for fifteen thousand pounds and a declaration in which she pledged the most absolute discretion, on the pain of heavy pecuniary sanctions. When she received the portrait she kept it on the table for a few days. To read it, she waited for a morning when, waking up, she felt like a queen. There were some, from time to time. The next day she telephoned Rebecca and did so repeatedly in the following days, until she was convinced that it really wasn’t possible to see Jasper Gwyn again and discuss it with him. No, even just an aperitif, like two old friends, was out of the question. Then she took a sheet of her writing paper (rice paper, amber-colored) and wrote a few lines straight off. The last said, “I envy you your talent, master, your rigor, those beautiful hands, and your secretary, who is truly charming. Yours, Elizabeth Croner.”