The sunlight is still flooding the room; but its radiance has died away from Jack Kirke’s face, leaving it for the moment cold and stern. Ruby is half frightened as she looks up at him. What has chased the brightness from the face a moment ago so glad?
“When you are as old as dad and I you will be thankful if you can say just that, little girl,” he says in a strange, strained voice.
Then Ruby knows that Mr. Kirke is sorry about something, though she does not know what, and, child-like, seeks to comfort him in the grief she does not know. She slips her small hand into his.
“I’m sorry too,” she whispers simply.
Again that flash of sunlight illumines the stern young face. The child’s words of ready sympathy have fallen like summer rain into the heart of the stranger far from home and friends, and the grief she does not even understand is somehow lessened by her innocent words.
“Ruby,” he says suddenly, looking into the happy little face so near his own, “I want you to do something for me. I want you to call me Jack. Nobody has called me that since I left home, and it would make it feel like old times to hear you say it. Don’t be afraid because I’m too old. It isn’t so very long ago since I was young like you.”
“Jack,” whispers Ruby, almost shyly.
“Good little girl!” Jack Kirke says approvingly. A very beautiful light is shining in his brown eyes, and he stoops suddenly and kisses the wondering child. “I must send you out a Christmas present for that,” Jack adds. “What is it to be, Ruby? A new doll?”
“You must excuse me, Mr. Kirke,” the lady of the house observes apologetically as she comes back to the room. She has actually taken the trouble to cross the quadrangle to assist Jenny in sundry small matters connected with the midday meal. “I am sorry I had to leave you for a little,” Mrs. Thorne goes on. “I hope Ruby has been entertaining you.”
“Ruby is a hostess in herself,” Jack Kirke returns, laughing.