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Show 140 and gathered in front of him to l i s t e n . Two policemen came by for coffee and hamburgers about eleven o'clock and l e f t a large t i p . Noel expressed concern that he was not looking well and made him s i t down among friends while he mixed him an alka seltzer, and Paul reproved him publicly for not having more of his own paintings up. A g i r l with bangs detached herself from the group that had come in with Simon Gardiner and wandered o f f to the part of the room hidden by the fireplace where Lorin, following her with a club sandwich and two orders of onion rings, found her looking past the heads of seated customers at a row of canvases on the wall and giving special attention to one of his. Most people didn't do that. He went back to the kitchen, his heart pounding, and returned carrying two cappucinos and a mocha parfait which he delivered to the table she had been closest t o , but she had moved on and was inspecting one of Paul's paintings. He s t a l l ed for a minute, talking to the couple who had ordered the cappucinos, while he watched to see what she thought of i t . He was too polite to say so but he had always thought Paul's work had a l i t t l e too much second-hand Kokoschka in i t . It was a way Paul had of avoiding problems of form and j u s t i f y i n g arbitrary juxtapositions of color in small slivers. This one was an i n t e r i o r of a room with a s o l i t a r y figure seated on the bed, and everything-the figure, the wrinkles in the bedclothes, the trees outside the window, the books on the shelf-flickered and twitched and suggested swirls of s p i r i t u a l forces to the point, quite frankly, though he wouldn't say so, of affectation. She didn't spend much time on that one, he noticed. She moved to the next one and studied i t with her mouth open. He enjoyed watching her face. It was pretty and i n t e l l i g e n t and didn't know i t was being watched. This was one of Noel's double self-portraits. Noel was clever, you had to give him that. He knew in advance |