'I ask purely in the spirit of friendship, Tom.' 'Friendship with me - or with Harriet?' 'Both, my dear fellow.' 'You're an accomplished liar, I'll give you that.' 'Then we have something in common.' Thomas Killigrew laughed. He was too old and too experienced to be easily taken in. Now in his mid-fifties, he was a man of medium height, running to fat and showing candid signs of a lifetime of sustained dissipation. Viewing the puffy face with its watery eyes and drooping moustache, Henry found it difficult to believe that he was looking at the same man as the one who had been painted almost thirty years earlier by no less an artist than Van Dyck, the premier choice of Charles I, the most single-minded connoisseur of portraiture in Europe. Thomas Killigrew had moved in high circles. As a Page to the King and Groom of the Bedchamber, he was entitled to call upon the artistry of a true master. Anthony Van Dyck's brush had been precise. Henry had seen the painting at Killigrew's house on a number of occasions.
