“A lovely girl that!” he added significantly.
“Think so?” she challenged.
“Decidedly,” he repeated.
She shrugged her shoulders a little and smiled at him in the glass. Breen’s interest grew. He tried to put his hands on her shoulders, by way of confidence, but Erna turned toward him with a quick supple movement. Like the accomplished artist she was, she said nothing, not even by way of reproach, but laughed again. He eyed her with still franker admiration.
“Well?” she questioned.
“Oh, I know,” he said, recollecting his rôle, and went on evasively: “But you’re not wearing your red dress or very much red?”
“What difference does that make? Maybe you’d rather have me come some other time?”
“No, no! You stay right here, now that you’ve come. You’ll do just as well in that costume. The same Erna Vitek is inside it. But—er—”
“But what?”
“I won’t attempt a color sketch of you in that dress. There, there, forgive me—it’s very charming, my dear, but— Perhaps, I’ll just make a pencil sketch of you to-day. Artists ought to commence with pencil sketches anyhow, until the characters of their subjects have had time to properly enter their blood, so to speak. Which, of course, is all Greek to you. Do you object, madame?”