"When are you going on leave?" I asked him.
"Oh, my wife's coming out now."
"But don't you want to see your daughter?" I asked.
He looked at the photograph again and then looked away. There was a curious look in his face, a somewhat peevish look, I thought, and he answered:
"I've been away from home too long now. I shall never go back."
I leaned back in my chair, smoking my pipe. The photograph showed me a girl of nineteen with wide blue eyes and bobbed hair; it was a pretty face, open and friendly, but the most noticeable thing about it was a peculiar charm of expression. Bob Webb's daughter was a very alluring young person. I liked that engaging audacity.
"It was rather a surprise to me when she sent along that photograph," he said presently. "I'd always thought of her as a child. If I'd met her in the street I shouldn't have known her."
He gave a little laugh that was not quite natural.
"It isn't fair.... When she was a child she used to love being petted."
His eyes were fixed on the photograph. I seemed to see in them a very unexpected emotion.