Francesca laughed gently. Reanda shook his head with slow disapprobation, and frowned.
"I say the truth," he said. "There is something—I cannot explain. But I can show you," he added quickly.
He took up his palette and brushes from the chair on which they lay, and reached the white plastered wall in two steps.
"Paint her," said Francesca, to encourage him.
"Yes, I will show her to you—as I think she is," he answered.
He closed his eyes for a moment, calling up the image before him, then went back to the chair and took a quantity of colour from a tube which lay, with half-a-dozen others, in the hollow of the rush seat. They were not the colours he used for fresco-painting, but had been left there when he had made a sketch of a head two or three days previously. In a moment he was before the wall again. It was roughly plastered from the floor to the lower line of the frescoes. With a long, coarse brush he began to sketch a gigantic head of a woman. The oil paint lay well on the rough, dry surface. He worked in great strokes at the full length of his arm.
"Make her beautiful, at least," said Francesca, watching him.
"Oh, yes—very beautiful," he answered.
He worked rapidly for a few minutes, smiling, as his hand moved, but not pleasantly. Francesca thought there was an evil look in his face which she had never seen there before, and that his smile was wicked and spiteful.
"But you are painting a sunset!" she cried suddenly.