But her slender finger pointed only to the snow crystal that Rivers had drawn. It was a graceful figure, not quite finished, but a delicate tracery of one of the myriad forms that snow crystals show. How often I had looked at the lovely things as they rested for a moment on my dark coat sleeve when I was out in a snowstorm. And after seeing Rivers draw them so skilfully, several times, they had taken on a new interest to me. But what had so moved Zizi I could not imagine. It was as if the little drawing were fraught with some dreadful significance of which I knew nothing.
Nor was Pennington Wise any more aware than I of the girl’s meaning.
He smiled quizzically, and said, “Well, Zizi, girl, what’s hypnotizing you? That drawing of Rivers’?”
“Yes,” and Zizi turned her big black eyes from my face to Wise’s, and gave a queer little sigh.
“Out with it, girlie,” urged Wise. “Tell your old Penny Wise what’s the matter.”
“Will you do what I want?” she asked, her voice tense and thrilled with strong feeling.
“Yes; to the limit.”
“Then look at that thing! That snow crystal!”
“Yes, I’ve looked,” and after a moment’s close scrutiny Wise turned his eyes again to the eerie face, so vividly emotional, so white with that unnamed fear.
“You look, too, Mr. Brice,” and I did.