Bryony shrugged slightly. "I like painting beautiful things." The words were simply honest, without Bryony even thinking about what they might reveal about her thought processes. If she'd been speaking to anyone but Marcus she wouldn't have said it - but then, she probably wouldn't have been discussing it with anyone but Marcus in the first place. "And I don't know if I want to look at myself in a mirror for that long." More or less unconsciously, Bryony had been avoiding mirrors for much of her life. There was one on the landing by her room at Aunt Hecuba's, and she looked in it before she left the house each day to make sure her robes and hair looked presentable, but after that, if she encountered a mirror going about her life she would stand with her back to it, though she rarely realised she was doing so.
It was true that the painting would lose much of its potential impact if it wasn't her, though, which was why she was still dithering over her decision. "I need to try a few sketches first, before I put any of it on canvas. It might not even work."