His gray eyes warmed with appreciation of the
young figure before him, just as Larry had seen them grow bright
watching the young figures disporting in the Sound.
"It is very gracious for a young woman like you, Miss Cameron," he
said in a voice of grave courtesy, "to be interested enough in an old
man like me to want to talk with him."
Maggie made the supreme effort of her life to keep herself in hand. "I
wanted to talk to you because of something Mr. Brainard told me
about--about your having a daughter."
Larry felt that this was too sacred a scene for him to intrude upon.
"Would you mind excusing me," he said; "there are some calculations
I've got to rush out"--and he returned to the bench on which they had
been sitting and pretended to busy himself over a pocket notebook.
While Larry had been speaking and moving away, Maggie had swiftly been
appraising her father. His gray eyes were direct as against the
furtiveness of Jimmie's; his mouth had a firm kindliness as against
the wrinkled cunning of Jimmie's; his bearing was erect, self-
possessed, as against Jimmie's bent, shuffling carriage. Maggie felt
no swift-born daughter love for this stranger who was her father. The
turmoil of her discovery filled her too completely to admit a full-
grown affection; but she thrilled with the sense of the vast
difference between her supposed father and this her real father.
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