This time the violet eyes wavered just for an instant, then fastened their gaze once more upon the speaker.
“I don’t remember how you look,” she stammered, “and I’d like to know. I can’t tell if I don’t look, can I?”
Her grave words, and possibly the steady, piercing gaze, brought a twitch to the father’s lips. Surely his child had spoken the truth. He himself had almost forgotten he had a girl; that she was the only living creature who had a call upon the slender thread of his life. Had he lived differently, the girl in front of him would have been watching him for some other reason than curiosity.
“That’s why I’m looking at you, sir,” she explained. “If any one on the hills’d say, ‘How’s your father looking, 12 Jinnie?’ if I hadn’t looked at you sharp, sir, how’d I know?”
She sighed as her eyes roved the length of the man once more. The ashes in the grate were no grayer than his face.
“You’re awful thin and white,” she observed.
“I’m sick,” replied Singleton in excuse.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” answered Virginia.
“You’re quite grown up now,” remarked the man presently, with a meditative air.
“Oh, yes, sir!” she agreed. “I’m a woman now. I’m fifteen years old.”