''Very good.''
''Later, you may have it taken with great care to my room and have it wrapped, solidly, for transport at noon tomorrow.''
''Very good, my Colonel.''
''Are you excited to see it?'' the girl asked.
''Very,'' said the Colonel. ''Gran Maestro some more of that Roederer, please, and please place a chair in such a position that we may view a portrait.
We are devotees of the pictorial arts.''
''There's no more Roederer cold,'' the Gran Maestro said. ''But if you would like some Perrier-Jouet—''
''Bring it,'' the Colonel said and added, ''Please.'' ''I don't talk like Georgie Patton,'' the Colonel told her. ''I don't have to.
And besides he's dead.''
''Poor man.''
''Yes, Poor man all his life.
Although quite rich in money and with a lot of armour.''
''Do you have anything against armour?''
''Yes.
Most of the people inside of it.
It makes men into bullies which is the first step toward cowardice; true cowardice I mean.
Perhaps it is a little complicated by claustrophobia.''
Then he looked at her and smiled and regretted taking her beyond her depth, as you might take a new swimmer on a shallow, shelving beach, into too deep water; and he sought to reassure her.
''You forgive me, Daughter.
Much of what I say is unjust.
But it is truer than the things that you will read in Generals' memoirs.
After a man gets one star, or more, the truth becomes as difficult for him to attain as the Holy Grail was in our ancestors' time.''
''But you were a general officer.''
''Not for too damn long,'' the Colonel said. ''Now Captains,'' the General said, ''they know the exact truth and they can mostly tell it to you.
If they can't, you reclassify them.''
''Would you reclassify me if I lied?''
''It would depend on what you lied about.''
''I'm not going to lie about anything.
I don't want to be reclassified.
It sounds horrible.''
''It is,'' the Colonel said. ''And you send them back to have it done to them with eleven different copies of why it should be done, every one of which you sign.''
''Did you reclassify many?''
''Plenty.''
The concierge came into the room with the portrait, carrying it in its big frame, much as a ship moves when she is carrying too much sail.
''Get two chairs,'' the Colonel said to the second waiter, ''and put them there. See that the canvas does not touch the chairs.
And hold it so it does not slip.'' Then to the girl he said, ''We'll have to change that frame.''
''I know,'' she said. ''It was not my choice.
Take it unframed with you and we'll choose a good frame next week.
Now look at it.
Not at the frame.
At what it says, or does not say, of me.''
It was a beautiful portrait; neither cold, nor snobbish, nor stylised, nor modern.
It was the way you would want your girl painted if Tintoretto were still around and, if he were not around, you settled for Velasquez.
It was not the way either of them painted.
It was simply a splendid portrait painted, as they sometimes are, in our time.
''It's wonderful,'' the Colonel said. ''It is truly lovely.''
The concierge and the second waiter were holding it, and looking at it around the edges.
The Gran Maestro was admiring fully.
The American, two tables down, was looking at it with his journalistic eyes, wondering who painted it.
The back of the canvas was to the other diners.