“I saw a white-breasted nuthatch yesterday in that tree,” said Virginia dreamily.
He did not reply, and there was such a long silence that she turned and looked at him. She saw how pale he had grown, how the delicate hollows had fallen in his cheeks, and the shadows under his eyes. Daniel’s eyes were beautiful, she thought—like a woman’s in their clear kindness. Perhaps it was the pain he had borne for so many years after his hurt.
“Virginia, if you look at me like that I shall say something,” he cried suddenly. “I can’t bear it! Turn your eyes away, Virginia.”
She laughed a little tremulously, blushing, too.
“But why, Dan? A cat may look at a king, you know.”
He did not answer for a while. He was digging little holes in the soft turf with his stick.
“A cripple can’t speak,” he said at last. “A cripple can’t tell a woman what he feels, even when that woman is an angel of compassion.”
“But you’re not a cripple, Dan. You’re only a little lame. It grows less, too, every day.”
“I overheard father once,” Daniel replied bitterly. “He called me a cripple. ‘No girl wants a cripple,’ he said.”
“Oh, how cruel,” Virginia cried. “And it’s not true, Dan; it’s not true at all!”