“Some people say it’s just the colour of honeysuckle,” I answered absently. I can’t be perfectly certain that he did retort so sharply, below his breath, “Does he, indeed!” or that the name of Sydney Vandeleur had been threatening to crop up once more between us. Still, I was glad of the wide pink shelter of my sun-bonnet as I added, in a matter-of-fact way, “You could get a sort of flesh-tint by mixing a little of the red with the white paint, but I don’t think I should. Suppose we leave the face and hands creamy-white as they are?”
“Very well; and her lips red, and the jacket and that toque affair, with more dabs of scarlet for the flowers in her bunch,” he said, kneeling on the sun-warmed turf on the other side of the figure from me, “with a black wing in her hat.”
“And her hair left as it is, too,” said I.
“No, no! I got this on purpose for her hair,” he said, and drew a full brushful of tar-black paint across the carven and crinkly locks in front, “she must be a brunette, this time.”
“Oh, and Mrs. Roberts will be so annoyed to see her without her beautiful golden chignon,” I protested, working away with the scarlet paint at the back of the jacket, “she’ll think she’s quite spoilt.”
“Nonsense; looks much better like this,” he declared. “A black-haired woman looks so much more alive than the others. Like red wine, dark grapes, crimson roses ... fairer colours are insipid, washed-out-looking!”
“No woman thinks so,” said I. “You never hear of a blonde tinting herself dark. It’s always the other way about!”
“I know one girl who wouldn’t change,” he argued, glancing over the shoulder of the wooden woman at the border of dark hair between my bonnet and my face. “You needn’t pretend you would, miss! Now what are you smiling at?”
“Only something,” I said, “that I’d just remembered.”
“Yes? (You’re an unexpected sex, aren’t you?) Well, what was this?”