Before that time the lines in his face had fitted the smile of the cynic, the grimace of banter, of irony and insolence.  But the strange glory that now glowed upon his features came there after the mightiest effort he had ever made to control his feelings and his expression.

He smiled!

In that smile he soothed, he promised, he appealed.  Then when he saw the tense expression of fear fade away he smiled more broadly—­he provoked reply in kind.  And slowly upon the child’s face an answering smile began to dawn—­little crinkles at the corners of the drooping mouth, little flickerings in the blue eyes, until at last the two beaming faces pledged—­on the part of the man tender protection, on the part of the child unquestioning confidence.

But he said no word—­he dared not trust his voice.

He went down on his knees cautiously, her smile welcoming him now.

He held out his hands.  She hesitated a moment and then gave into them her chiefest possession—­her rag doll.  It was as if she had pledged her faith in him.  He danced the doll upon his broad palm, and the child’s eyes, dancing too, thanked him for the courtesy he was paying to her dearest friend.

But Walker Farr realized that something strange and disquieting in the case of a man who believed himself a cynic was stirring within him.  That hostage of the doll was not sufficient to satisfy the sudden queer craving.  The knowledge of the hopeless helplessness of that little girl throbbed through him.  The memory of the spectacle of what he had left on the canal bank made the pathos of this little scene in the garret doubly poignant as he looked into the child’s eyes.  Never, in his memory, had he invited a child to come to him.

Now he put out his hand—­and it trembled.  She snuggled her warm little fist into his grasp.  And then she scrambled up and came and nestled confidingly against him.  She couldn’t see his face then, and he allowed the tears of a strong man who is overcome before he has understood—­who wonders at himself—­he allowed those tears to streak his cheeks and did not wipe them away.

Walker Farr was too perturbed to soliloquize just then in his philosopher’s style, but he did realize that some part of his altruism had come out of its trance.

And after he had knelt there on the floor for a time he rose and took the child in his arms and sat down in a creaky rocking-chair and crooned under his breath, and was astonished to find that she had gone sound asleep.  He stared into the dusk that was gathering outside the dormer window and wondered what ailed him.

He had heard many feet thudding on the stairs below.  The workers were returning.  The beehive was filling.  There were many voices, clatter of dishes, chatter of patois.

He wondered how well the woman Sirois was known in the house—­whether she had relatives—­how soon somebody would come and beat upon the door.