His gaze rose from the ground and returned to Ella’s eyes: the first tentative look he’d worn yet, half shame and half hope. It was a look that belonged to the boy at the ballet, as if the aloofness and the coronet were as much a disguise as that old coat and woollen cap. Someone who usually wanted to be seen less, to pass unnoticed, but who in his most secret heart wanted exactly what Ella wanted after her years of invisibility: to be looked on, and seen truly, by someone kind who would stay.
