there.
Then, like the clicking of a camera shutter, the unseen gaze was gone. I turned back to the girl. She had
spread a half-dozen boxes on the counter and was opening them. She looked up at me, candidly, almost
sweetly. She said:
"Why, of course you may see all that we have. I am sorry if you thought me indifferent to your desires.
My aunt, who makes the dolls, loves children. She would not willingly allow one who also loves them to
go from here disappointed."
It was a curious little speech, oddly stilted, enunciated half as though she were reciting from dictation. Yet
it was not that which aroused my interest so much as the subtle change that had taken place in the girl
herself. Her voice was no longer languid. It held a vital vibrancy. Nor was she the lifeless, listless person