"Take your pose!" said Merriam to Jennie.
"Not that one," said Jennie. "It's too hard. Look!"
She picked the rose from above Crockett's ear and stepped behind his chair. Then she stooped till her chin rested on the top of his head and let her two bare arms drop past his cheeks till her hands came together on his shirt front. In her hands she held the rose pointing upward so that the blossom was just below his chin.
The effect was distinctly comical--Crockett's dour countenance, with its angry eyes, framed above by Jennie's pretty laughing face, resting on the very top of his head, at the sides by her round white arms, and below by the rose under his chin.
"Fine!" Merriam laughed. "It's better than the other. Ready, Margery?"
"Yes."
A second time he switched off the lights and touched a match to the powder.
Again Crockett had not even blinked so far as Merriam could judge. Well satisfied, the latter spoke to Margery:
"Put that camera away, will you, please, where it could not be easily found except by yourself."
Margery picked up the camera and departed into the kitchenette.