Somewhat uncertainly and very shyly the child looked up and smiled. She was extremely pretty, with a gipsy-like prettiness new to Milbanke. The only attribute she had inherited from her father's family was the clear olive skin—that distinguished all the Asshlins. Her dark brown hair, her deep blue eyes, her peculiarly winning smile, had all come to her from her dead mother.
With an embarrassment almost equal to her own, Milbanke extended his hand. The average modern child he ignored with comfortable superiority, but this small girl, with her warm smile and her overwhelming shyness, was something infinitely more different to deal with. He shifted his position uneasily.
"How d'you do?" he hazarded. "How d'you do—Nance?"
The little brown fingers stirred nervously in his clasp, and the child, still smiling, made some totally unintelligible reply.
With a boisterous laugh, Asshlin ended the situation.
"Easily known you're not a father, James!" he cried. "Why, you'd have given her a kiss and clinched the business fifty seconds ago. But you're starving. Where's that scamp Clo?"
He turned again to the little girl who had drawn nearer to him for protection.
She replied, but in so low a tone that Milbanke heard nothing. A moment later he was enlightened by Asshlin's loud voice.
"Did you ever hear of a thing like that, James?" he exclaimed. "What would you say to a daughter who rides races on the strand in the dark of an October evening, with the mist enough to give your horses their death? 'Pon my word——" His face reddened; then suddenly he paused and laughed. "After all, what's bred in the bone—eh, James?" he said. "I believe I'd have done the same myself at fifteen—maybe worse."
He checked himself, laughed again; then sighed. But catching Milbanke's eye, he threw off the momentary depression, and turned once more to Nance.