"Billy," she spoke again, "are you sick?"
With a supreme effort of will he shook off his numbness and the red flush of shame wiped the pallor from his cheeks. What would she think of him if she knew? The very anguish of the thought spurred him to play the part of hypocrite. It was despicable, he knew, but what man has not had to play it, sooner or later, in the great game of love?
"Fell out o' a tree," he managed to say. "Struck my head on a limb."
"Oh!" she cried commiseratingly. She came closer to him—so close that her very nearness made him dizzy with joy. With a tiny handkerchief she wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
"Come out into the light and let me see where you hurt yourself," she said, oh so gently.
"I don't think it left any mark," Billy stammered. "Anyways, I feel a whole lot better now. It was foolish for me to climb that tall tree. I didn't have to do it."
"Then why did you do it?" They were out into the hardwoods by now, in a long valley strewn with a net-work of sunbeams and shadows and he saw a hint of reproach in her big eyes as she asked the question. His heart leaped with sheer joy. She might just as well have said, "You have no right to run risks, now that you have me to consider."
They sat down on a mossy log. Her fingers brushed back his hair as her eyes sought vainly for marks or bruises.
"I asked you why you climbed the tree, Billy?"
Billy's mind worked with lightning speed.