The latch moved slowly, and with its movement came a gentle tap on
the panel.

"Come in," he said.

The next instant he was staring. The girl had entered and closed
the door behind her. O'Connor's picture stood in flesh and blood
before him. The girl's eyes met his own. They were like glorious
violets, as O'Connor had said, but they were not the eyes he had
expected to see. They were the wide-open, curious eyes of a child.
He had visualized them as pools of slumbering flame--the idea
O'Connor had given him--and they were the opposite of that. Their
one emotion seemed to be the emotion roused by an overwhelming,
questioning curiosity. They were apparently not regarding him as a
dying human being, but as a creature immensely interesting to look
upon. In place of the gratitude he had anticipated, they were
filled with a great, wondering interrogation, and there was not
the slightest hint of embarrassment in their gaze. For a space it
seemed to Kent that he saw nothing but those wonderful,
dispassionate eyes looking at him. Then he saw the rest of her--
her amazing hair, her pale, exquisite face, the slimness and
beauty of her as she stood with her back to the door, one hand
still resting on the latch. He had never seen anything quite like
her. He might have guessed that she was eighteen, or twenty, or
twenty-two. Her hair, wreathed in shimmering, velvety coils from
the back to the crown of her head, struck him as it had struck
O'Connor, as unbelievable. The glory of it gave to her an
appearance of height which she did not possess, for she was not
tall, and her slimness added to the illusion.