Against his better judgement, he couldn't help but laugh at the thought as well. He knew next to nothing about her father, but he did know all too well how people reacted to his own father. The image was entertaining. "He and his siblings came from a farming family originally, and he helped with the local almanac they published here for awhile. He was fired when I was a boy. I wouldn't call him reliable, but he has a method." He wasn't going to defend or support his father. There was just no denying that there was a science to what eventually became a madness of sorts.
Michel did his best to remember the painting that she described. A man with dark eyebrows wearing a wig was not an unusual image. He had seen plenty of them. However, her impression of the scowl was impressive. That was a memorable expression, but she was certainly right. She looked absolutely nothing like the man in a portrait. He wouldn't claim to know anything about heredity (despite the future of his family name), but had he any care for the matter he would've said something was strange about it. With her family gone, it didn't really seem to matter. "She appeared common," he agreed in her assumption of her mother's beheading. Though beautiful, she was certainly a high class woman in those portraits. He had seen enough of them and regardless of how they really were he didn't really give them much thought outside of the immediate assumptions.
He took a step away from her when she touched his hair. He wasn't the kind of person who had a problem with being touched, but he was the kind of person who still liked to be spiteful. He wasn't some dog that she could just reach over and pat on the head. "How's that?" Michel did ask, locking the easel back into place after he finished adjusting the height.