In Peter Knight’s eyes, as he gazed at his daughter, there was something akin to shame; but Jim evinced only a hard, calculating appraisal.  Both men inwardly acknowledged that the mother had spoken less than half the truth, for the girl was extravagantly, bewitchingly attractive.  Her face and form would have been noticeable anywhere and under any circumstances; but now in contrast with the unmodified homeliness of her parents and brother her comeliness was almost startling.  The others seemed to harmonize with their drab surroundings, with the dull, unattractive house and its furnishings, but Lorelei was in violent opposition to everything about her.  She wore her beauty unconsciously, too, as a princess wears the purple of her rank.  Neither in speech nor in look did she show a trace of her father’s fatuous commonplaceness, and she gave no sign of her mother’s coldly calculating disposition.  Equally the girl differed from her brother, for Jim was anemic, underdeveloped, sallow; his only mark of distinction being his bright and impudent eye, while she was full-blooded, healthy, and clean.  Splendidly distinctive, from her crown of warm amber hair to her shapely, slender feet, it seemed that all the hopes, all the aspirations, all the longings of bygone generations of Knights had flowered in her.  As muddy waters purify themselves in running, so had the Knight blood, coming through unpleasant channels, finally clarified and sweetened itself in this girl.  In the color of her eyes she resembled neither parent; Mrs. Knight’s were close-set and hard; Peter’s shallow, indefinite, weak.  Lorelei’s were limpid and of a twilight blue.  Her single paternal inheritance was a smile perhaps a trifle too ready and too meaningless.  Yet it was a pleasant smile, indicative of a disposition toward courtesy, if not self-depreciation.

But there all resemblance ceased.  Lorelei Knight was mysteriously different from her kin; she might almost have sprung from a different strain, and except as one of those “throwbacks” which sometimes occur in a mediocre family, when an exotic offspring blooms like a delicate blossom in a bed of weeds, she was inexplicable.  Simple living had made her strong, yet she remained exquisite; behind a natural and a deep reserve she was vibrant with youth and spirits.

In the doorway she hesitated an instant, favoring the group with her shadowy, impersonal smile.  In her gaze there was a faint inquiry, for it was plain that she had interrupted a serious discussion.  She came forward and rested a hand upon her father’s thinly haired bullet-head.  Peter reached up and took it in his own moist palm.

“We were just talking about you,” he said.

“Yes?” The smile remained as the girl’s touch lingered.

“Your ma thinks I’d better accept that New York offer on your account.”

“On mine?  I don’t understand.”

Peter stroked the hand in his clasp, and his weak, upturned face was wrinkled with apprehension.  “She thinks you should see the world and—­make something of yourself.”