"No you didn't. It was a mess before you came." She glanced at him doubtfully, keeping the drawing turned away. "You see," she continued, "the shadowy part of a lamb on a sunny morning is quite blue—quite blue. Did you know that?"
"Well," replied Paul, musingly, shielding his eyes and looking toward the distant flock, "now that you have drawn my attention to the fact I perceive it to be so—yes."
"But when you haven't got many colours," explained Flamby, "it's not so easy to paint. I've made my lamb too blue for anything!" She displayed the drawing, her eyes dancing with laughter. "No man ever saw a blue lamb," she said—"while he was sober!"
The words shed a sidelight upon the domestic habits of the late Sergeant Duveen, as Paul did not fail to note; and in the masculinity of Flamby's jesting he glimpsed something of the closeness of the intimacy which had existed between father and daughter. But, taking the drawing from her hands, he was astonished at the skill which it displayed and which surpassed that of any work he had seen outside the best exhibitions. It possessed none of the graceful insipidity of the water colours which young ladies are taught to produce at all good boarding-schools and convents, but was characterised by the same vigour which informed Flamby's conversation. Furthermore, it represented a living animal, soft of fleece and inviting a caress and was drawn with almost insolent ease. Paul looked into the girl's watching eyes.
"You are an artist, Flamby," he said; "and like all artists you are unduly critical of your work."
A rich colour glowed through the tan upon Flamby's cheeks and she was aware of a delicious little nervous thrill. Paul Mario's fascinating voice had laid its thrall upon her and his eyes were far more beautiful even than she had supposed, when, confronting Fawkes in Bluebell Hollow, she had suddenly looked up to find Paul watching her. That easy self-possession which she had learned from her father and which deserted her rarely enough, threatened to desert her now; also, a poisonous doubt touched her joy. With its coming came a return of confidence and Flamby laid her hand confidingly upon Paul's arm.
"You really do mean what you say, don't you?" she asked wistfully.
"My dear little girl, why are you so doubtful of my honesty?"
Flamby lowered her fiery head. "Except father," she said, "I never knew anybody who really thought I could paint. Some pretended to think so; and Miss Kingsbury at High Fielding, who ought to know, laughed at me—after she had asked me to go and see her—and told me to 'try and find a nice domestic situation.'"
The mimicry in the concluding words was delightfully funny, but Paul nodded sympathetically. A mental picture of Miss Kingsbury arose before him, and it was in vain that he sought to consider her and her kind without rancour. Beauty is a dangerous gift for any girl, making countless enemies amongst her own sex and often debarring her from harmless pleasures open to her plainer sisters. But the Miss Kingsburys of the smaller county towns are an especial menace to such as Flamby, although charity rarely assumes the dimensions of a vice among any of the natives of England's southern shires.