“Jimmy,” he said suddenly, in a voice that was far away with his thoughts, “in the old days, when you were flying high to drop on a stray Hun,—say, at twenty thousand feet, with the earth miles away out of touch,—didn’t you ever feel that if you went a little higher—climbed and climbed—you would come to something—some other place? Didn’t it almost seem to you that it would be as easy as going back?”
I glanced at him. Into my mind flitted a memory of his last night’s wild talk about the stars. He had always been a little queer. Was he—not quite right?
“I can’t say it did,” I replied curtly. “I was always jolly glad to get down again.”
He looked at me.
“Yes—I suppose so!” he commented. There was almost an insult in his tone.
Before I could decide whether to resent it or to humor him, I saw Sylvia approaching us along the pier, charming in her summer dress, but prudently with a raincoat over her arm.
“Here’s Miss Bryant!” I said, glad of this excuse to put an end to the conversation.
He leaped to his feet with a peculiar alacrity.
“At last!” he ejaculated, as though an immeasurable time of waiting was at an end. He quenched a sudden flash of excitement in his eyes as he caught my glance on his face.
She stood above us on the pier, smiling.