Macmaster quoted to himself:
"'I looked and saw your eyes in the shadow of your hair. . . .'"
There was no doubt that Mrs. Duchemin's eyes, which were of a dark, pebble blue, were actually in the shadow of her blue-black, very regularly waved hair. The hair came down on the square, low forehead. It was a phenomenon that Macmaster had never before really seen, and, he congratulated himself, this was one more confirmation—if confirmation were needed!—of the powers of observation of the subject of his monograph!
Mrs. Duchemin bore the sunlight! Her dark complexion was clear; there was, over the cheekbones, a delicate suffusion of light carmine. Her jawbone was singularly clear-cut, to the pointed chin—like an alabaster, mediæval saint's.
She said:
"Of course you're Scotch. I'm from Auld Reekie myself."
Macmaster would have known it. He said he was from the Port of Leith. He could not imagine hiding anything from Mrs. Duchemin. Mrs. Duchemin said with renewed insistence:
"Oh, but of course you must see my husband and the pictures. Let me see. . . . We must think. . . . Would breakfast now? . . ."
Macmaster said that he and his friend were Government servants and up to rising early. He had a great desire to breakfast in that house. She said:
"At a quarter to ten, then, our car will be at the bottom of your street. It's a matter of ten minutes only, so you won't go hungry long!"