Had Mademoiselle any rouge? They had always heard that French
ladies No. Mademoiselle hadn't and to judge by the colour of her
face, Mademoiselle didn't need it. Did Mademoiselle think the
chemist sold rouge or had she any false hair to spare? At this
challenge Mademoiselle's pale fingers pulled out a dozen hairpins,
and down came the loveliest blue-black hair, hanging to her knees
in straight, heavy lines.
"No, you terrible infants," she cried. "I have not the false hair, nor
the rouge. And my teeth you want them also, without doubt?"
She showed them in a laugh.
"I said you were a Princess," said Mabel, "and now I know. You're
Rapunzel. Do always wear your hair like that! May we have the
peacock fans, please, off the mantelpiece, and the things that loop
back the curtains, and all the handkerchiefs you've got?"
Mademoiselle denied them nothing. They had the fans and the
handkerchiefs and some large sheets of expensive drawing-paper
out of the school cupboard, and Mademoiselle's best sable
paint-brush and her paint-box.
"Who would have thought," murmured Gerald, pensively sucking
the brush and gazing at the paper mask he had just painted, "that
she was such a brick in disguise? I wonder why crimson lake
always tastes just like Liebig's Extract."
Everything was pleasant that day somehow. There are some days
like that, you know, when everything goes well from the very
beginning; all the things you want are in their places, nobody
misunderstands you, and all that you do turns out admirably.
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