“The yellow-haired one, of course.”
Cheriton screwed his glass in his eye. He had been the first to detect that the color of the hair was yellow, and yet for some strange reason the solution of the mystery had not until that moment presented itself to him.
“What damned impertinence!” said he.
“Anybody been treading on your corns, Cheriton?” asked several persons.
“Not exactly. But, do you know, I commissioned that fellow Lascelles to make a copy of Araminta, Duchess of Dorset, for Cheriton House.”
“And he copies the wrong Araminta!” came a shout of laughter. There was really no need to shout, but immediately after supper that is the sort of thing that happens sometimes. “A good judge too.”
“Gross impertinence. I think I shall be quite justified in repudiating the whole transaction.”
“Quite, Cheriton,” said the marquis, with a very obvious wink at the company and preparing to jest in the somewhat formidable Yorkshire manner. “But it is easily explained. Young fellow got a little mixed between Gainsborough’s Araminta, Duchess of Dorset, and Nature’s Araminta, Duchess of Brancaster. Very natural mistake—what?”
The arrival upon the scene of the Georgian Era and the Heathen Deity, the latter walking quite nimbly with very little aid from her stick, set the circle of art critics in further uproar.
“Who pulled aside the curtain?” demanded the mistress of the house. “Cheriton, I suspect you.”