She confided this to her mother. 'Dear mother,' she said, 'it is doubtless nothing more than my fancy, but his beard does seem to me to have altered in colour during the last ten days—a very little, of course.'
'Then you, too, have observed it!' the lady interrupted delightedly. 'My dearest child, you cannot imagine how your words relieve me! For a week past I have accused my eyesight of failing me, and myself of growing old.'
'Then you really think there is a change?' asked Fatima, at once doubtful and hoping.
'Indeed, yes. Ask yourself if it be reasonable to suppose that our eyes are playing a trick on both of us? Not,' her mother went on, 'that I, for my part, have any prejudice against blue. On the contrary, it is a beautiful colour, and considered lucky. The poets—you will have remarked—when they would figure to us the highest attainable happiness, select a blue flower or a blue bird for its emblem. Heaven itself is blue; and, at the least, a blue beard must be allowed to confer distinction.'
'A greyish-blue,' hazarded Fatima.
'A bluish-grey, rather,' her mother corrected her: 'that is, if I must define the shade as it appears to me.'
'And,' still hesitated Fatima, 'since it has begun to change, there seems no reason why it should not continue to do so.'
'My darling'—her mother kissed her—'that is precisely the point! Its colour is changing, you say. But for what reason? Obviously because he is in love; and what love has begun, love can carry to a conclusion. Nay, but put it on the ground of pity alone. Could a feeling heart set itself any task more angelic than to rescue so worthy a gentleman from so hideous an affliction—if affliction it be, which I am far from allowing?'
Fatima reflected on her mother's advice, but thought it prudent to consult her sister Anne and her step-brothers before coming to a decision which, once taken, must be irrevocable.
They listened to her very good-naturedly; though, to tell the truth, all three were somewhat jaded, having sat up all night at the card-tables, playing at ombre, quadrille, lasquenet; and Heaven knows what other games.