And thereupon great tears welled up into their sympathetic eyes, and the twins wept in chorus. And somehow the tears, which had thus far been denied the man, now slowly and painfully flooded his eyes. He groped the two children into his arms, and buried his face in the soft wavy hair which fell in a tangle about the girl’s head.
For some moments he sat thus, something of his grief easing in the flood of almost womanish tears. Until, finally, it was Jamie who saved the situation. His sobs died out abruptly, and the boy in him stirred.
“Me want t’ eat,” he protested, without preamble.
The man looked up.
“Eat?” he echoed vaguely.
“Yes. Dinner,” explained Vada, whose tears were still flowing, but who never failed as her little brother’s interpreter.
There was a moment’s pause while Scipio stared down at the two faces lifted so appealingly to his. Then a change came into his expressionless eyes. A smoldering fire began to burn, which seemed to deepen their weakly coloring. His drawn face seemed to gather strength. And somehow even his straw-colored hair, so scanty, ill-grown and disheveled, looked less like the stubble it so much resembled. It was almost as though a latent, unsuspected strength were rousing within him, lifting him from the slough of despair by which he was so nearly submerged. It was as though the presence of his twins had drawn from him an acknowledgment of his duty, a sense which was so strongly and incongruously developed in his otherwise uncertain character, and demanded of him a sacrifice of all personal inclination. They were her children. Yes, and they were his. Her children––her children. And she was gone. They had no one to look to, no one to care for them now, but––him.
He sprang to his feet.
“Why, yes, kiddies,” he said, with a painful assumption of lightness. “You’re needing food sure. Say, I guess we won’t wait for your momma. We’ll just hand her an elegant surprise. We’ll get dinner ourselves.”
Jamie gurgled his joyous approval, but Vada was more intelligible.