Penny pretends

“Penny Plain become Penny Coloured eh?   A definite improvement if I may say so!”  

Penny looked up at Eric McGarry, suppressing her desire to smirk, gloatingly, at him, and instead applied a mirror-rehearsed sequence of facial responses indicating in turn surprise, recognition and (hardest of all) flattered pleasure.    

Yes, he had noticed her bright pink jacket – he was meant to – as he had completely ignored, as also intended, her earlier neutral and anonymous appearances in these same auction rooms in the previous three weeks.   Originally she had hardly dared to believe it was possible for him to be so unobservant, but over the course of the five weeks she’d been following him around, she had realised that he had lost none of his self-important arrogance – viewed, in Venice, in her youthful ignorance, as cleverness and knowledge – and with a secret, and somewhat relieved, wriggle of delight, she realised that her task – Guido's second task  – was going to at least be easier and more satisfying to accomplish than she had at one time feared.