“Up the hill?”
She nodded.
His face grew grave. “I thought I told you you must not go up the hill alone,” he chided. “It’s dangerous country.”
“Oh, but I wasn’t alone.” She paused, but his face gave no inkling of surprise. “Only I over-stayed my time and I was afraid I kept you waiting.”
“I wasn’t in the least inconvenienced,” he replied. “Shall we go down to your favourite seat now?”
She tripped to his side and they sauntered along the beach toward Amethyst Island.
It was quite beneath Louis Hammond to play the part of eavesdropper, though a curiosity akin to jealousy as to what the Big Boss of the Nannabijou Camps and Josephine Stone could have in common was fairly burning him up. He swung resolutely away in the opposite direction—for the camp.
His thoughts were in a mighty whirl. But withal they were pleasant thoughts—deliriously pleasant.
He had held in his arms Josephine Stone, she whom he had dreamed of so long as the Girl with the High-arched Eyebrows—had kissed her—yes, had been kissed by her in return. Hammond was astounded over his own enterprise as a lover.
When such a woman suffered a man to kiss her on the mouth, he swore to himself, she must—must hold him in a regard higher than any other man. It therefore did not matter about Acey Smith.