"It is I who am to make the profile—I had forgotten that," said Helen. "We'll do it this morning. I feel in the mood."
He was not long in doubt as to the nature of the mood. It was an abandon of fanciful humour.
"Mind, you are not to look around at me, but at Henriette!" she said warningly, as they went up the path. "I'm strictly unofficial."
He had hardly settled himself in his pose when she broke out laughing. He looked around inquiringly.
"You are breaking the rules!" she cried. "Remember, you got yourself into this and you must play the game. I'm making a profile."
"I can't help it, can I, because I am so fond of myself that I want more and more pictures of myself?" he complained quizzically. "Posing may yet become a disease with me."
"You will be crying too much cousin as well as too much ancestor," said Henriette, entering into the spirit of the occasion. He was at their mercy.
"It's the third degree of cousinship!" he said.
What would the class of 1911, let alone P. O'Brien, the foreman of the construction gang at Las Palmas, say if they saw him now? P. O'Brien, at least, would not call it "a man's job." There were two voices in his ears: one from lips he could not see and the other from those he could.
Leisurely, Henriette mixed her colours, inclining her head this way and that as she did when she looked at her hair in the mirror. Then the graceful arm rose and the slim fingers, holding the brush daintily, put a dab on the canvas.