"Tiens!" said Mademoiselle, "you love the old French governess?
Impossible," and she spoke rather indistinctly.
"You're not old," said Mabel; "at least not so very, she added brightly, and you're as lovely as a Princess."
"Go then, flatteress!" said Mademoiselle, laughing; and Mabel went. The others were already half-way up the stairs.
Mademoiselle sat in the drawing-room as usual, and it was a good thing that she was not engaged in serious study, for it seemed that the door opened and shut almost ceaselessly all throughout the afternoon. Might they have the embroidered antimacassars and the sofa cushions? Might they have the clothes-line out of the washhouse? Eliza said they mightn't, but might they? Might they have the sheepskin hearth-rugs? Might they have tea in the garden, because they had almost got the stage ready in the dining-room, and Eliza wanted to set tea? Could Mademoiselle lend them any coloured clothes scarves or dressing-gowns, or anything bright? Yes, Mademoiselle could, and did silk things, surprisingly lovely for a governess to have.
Had Mademoiselle any rouge? They had always heard that French ladies No. Mademoiselle hadn't and to judge by the colour of her face, Mademoiselle didn't need it. Did Mademoiselle think the chemist sold rouge or had she any false hair to spare? At this challenge Mademoiselle's pale fingers pulled out a dozen hairpins, and down came the loveliest blue-black hair, hanging to her knees in straight, heavy lines.
"No, you terrible infants," she cried. "I have not the false hair, nor the rouge. And my teeth you want them also, without doubt?"
She showed them in a laugh.
"I said you were a Princess," said Mabel, "and now I know. You're Rapunzel. Do always wear your hair like that! May we have the peacock fans, please, off the mantelpiece, and the things that loop back the curtains, and all the handkerchiefs you've got?"
Mademoiselle denied them nothing. They had the fans and the handkerchiefs and some large sheets of expensive drawing-paper out of the school cupboard, and Mademoiselle's best sable paint-brush and her paint-box.
"Who would have thought," murmured Gerald, pensively sucking the brush and gazing at the paper mask he had just painted, "that she was such a brick in disguise? I wonder why crimson lake always tastes just like Liebig's Extract."