Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/86

72 "I'd like, please, to look at you," he said. "It won't hurt," he added quickly, instantly conscious of some unspoken hesitancy.

"I have no fear of that," said the voice, "but you will find little worth the looking for."

Kirk, nevertheless, stood beside the old gentleman's chair, ready with a quick, light hand to visualize his friend's features.

"My hair, if that will help you," the voice told him, "is quite white, and my eyes are usually rather blue."

"Blue," murmured Kirk, his fingers flitting down the fine lines of the old gentleman's profile; "that's cool and nice, like the sea and the wind. Your face is like the ivory thing—smooth and—and carved. I think you really must be something different and rather enchanted."

But the old man had caught both Kirk's hands and spread them out in his own. There was a moment of silence, and then he said:

"Do you care for music, my child?"

"I love Phil's songs," Kirk answered, puzzled a little by a different note in the voice he was beginning to know. "She sings and plays the accompaniments on the piano."