"What, Paul?"
"I have to go to the chateau tonight and see that picture. Maybe that
will help me to remember."
"You don't look like him," Flip said. "You don't look like him at all."
"No." Paul picked up the poker and jabbed miserably at the logs. "But
you don't seem as if you looked at all like either your mother or
father, from their pictures."
"I don't," Flip said. "I look like my grandmother."
"Well, you see, then? It doesn't mean anything if I don't look like
him. But Flip, I'm sure if I saw my father I'd remember him. Don't you
think I would?"
"I don't know," Flip said. "It seems to me you would."
Paul knocked all the logs out of place with the poker and had to take
the tongs to put them back. "He's so hideous, Flip. Like a snake. Or a
rat. And Flip. If I were really his son and he'd spent all that time
looking for me, it would be because he loved me, wouldn't it? And I
didn't feel that he loved me at all. If only he'd had that picture with
him. If only I could get it without going to the chateau to meet him
tonight."
They sat looking into the fire. A log broke in half and fell, sending
up a shower of sparks, and suddenly Flip thought of something that made
a prickly feeling begin at the base of her spine and go all the way up
her back. At last she said, "I know how you can get the picture without
having to go to the chateau."
"How?" Paul asked eagerly.
"I'll go."
"Don't be a little idiot," Paul said. "As if I'd let you. Anyhow he
wouldn't give it to you."
"I could pretend I was you."
"I wouldn't let you."
"I could wear your ski clothes."
"They wouldn't fit you."
"They'd fit well enough," Flip said. "I'm not so much shorter than you.
And I could put my hair under your cap and in the dark he wouldn't be
able to tell the difference."