Jimmy had retreated behind his sister’s chair and was gazing at him with frowning intentness. Manifestly the child was disappointed. Whitcomb would fit into the scene far better than himself, Jarvis was forced to acknowledge. He saw the wonderment in Barbara’s eyes, and mingled with it he fancied he could detect cold dislike and fear.
“You were reading,” he said, his eyes lingering on the hands which held the thin blue volume. “Won’t you——” He hesitated; then went on boldly: “Don’t stop because I am here.”
She would have turned over the leaves and read other pretty trifles if it had been David instead of himself, he thought bitterly. He waited for a cold refusal.
“You wouldn’t like ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses,’” Jimmy said unexpectedly. He had not removed his inquiring brown eyes from Jarvis’s face. Something that he saw there emboldened him. “It’s for little boys, littler than I am; but I like it.”
Jarvis smiled, the singular smile new to his lips and of which he was not at all aware, any more than of the elemental changes in himself.
“Perhaps I’d like it, too,” he said. “Nobody ever reads out loud to me.”
“Read the one about the wind, Barb’ra,” urged Jimmy. “The wind and the kites. I like that.”
Barbara turned over the pages slowly.
“Shall I?” she asked Jarvis.
Her eyes lingered irresolutely on his face for an instant. It was evident that she was wondering at the sight of him there, pale and grave, but with an unfamiliar gentleness in his eyes and about his unsmiling lips.