"The idea that she has resigned herself to the creative demands of her father's and her father's friend's muse does not inspire me with any positive feeling. In that case what is the difference between Miss Weir and a particularly lifelike mannequin?" Peter asks.
"That isn't impossible to believe," Peter says, once the man with the faux-hawk and eye lashes expresses his scenario, "so we take this portrait as a kind of silent gesture towards Miss Weir, an expression of his desire. Hassam, fifty at the time, approaches a woman much younger than he is, who is the daughter of a dear friend and contemporary in the artistic world. He's known your father for what? Nineteen, twenty years by now? He asks to paint your portrait, and then he turns you into a Symbol." If you had a pile of wood as dry as his tone, you could burn a witch on it. "It..." makes my skin crawl, he thinks. "Seems predatory."
Hm. He might be projecting.
"I'm Peter," he says, introducing himself to the two men.