Colin Quale, meeting her, flickered his lashes and smiled: "Is this what the storm did to you?"
"What?"
"This and this." He touched his cheeks and his eyes. "To-day, if I painted you, I should have to put pink on my palette—yesterday I should have needed only black and white."
Mary smiled back at him. "Do you interpret things always through the medium of your brush?"
"Why not? Life is just that—a little color more or less, and it all depends on the hand of the artist."
"What a wonderful palette He has!" Her eyes swept the sea and the sky. "This morning the world is all gold and blue."
"And yesterday it was gray."
Mary flashed a glance at him. His voice had changed. Delilah was coming toward them. "There's material I like to work with," he said, "there's something more than paint or canvas—living, breathing beauty."
"He's saying things about you," Mary said, as Delilah joined them.
Delilah, coloring faintly, cast down her eyes. "I'm afraid of him, Mary," she said.