CHAPTER X.
Crowdie stepped backward from her, as she laid her hat and veil upon her knee. He slowly twisted a bit of crayon between his fingers, as though to help his thoughts, and he looked at her critically.
“How are you going to paint me?” she asked, regretting that she had spoken so very coldly a moment earlier.
“That’s one of those delightful questions that sitters always ask,” answered the artist, smiling a little. “That’s precisely what I’m asking myself—how in the world am I going to paint you?”
“Oh—that isn’t what I meant! I meant—full face or side face, you know.”
“Oh, yes,—of course. I was only laughing at myself. You have no idea what an extraordinary change taking off your hat makes, Miss Lauderdale. It would be awfully rude to talk to a lady about her face under ordinary circumstances. In detail, I mean. But you must forgive me, because it’s my profession.”
He moved about with sudden steps, stopping and gazing at her each time that he obtained a new point of view.
“How does my hat make such a difference?” asked Katharine. “What sort of difference?”
“It changes your whole expression. It’s quite right that it should. When you have it on, one only sees the face—the head from the eyes downwards—that means the human being from the perceptions downwards. When you take your hat off, I see you from the intelligence upwards.”
“That would be true of any one.”