As though she really had made this poignant call Crozier turned round in the buggy where he sat with Jesse Bulrush, pale but erect; and, with a strange instinct, he looked straight to where she was. When he saw her his face flushed, he could not have told why. Was it that there had passed to him in his sleep the subconscious knowledge of the kiss which Kitty had given him; and, after all, had he said “My darling” to her and not to the wife far away across the seas, as he thought? A strange feeling, as of secret intimacy, never felt before where Kitty was concerned, passed through him now, and he was suddenly conscious that things were not as they had ever been; that the old impersonal comradeship had vanished. It disturbed, it almost shocked him. Whereupon he made a valiant effort to recover the old ground, to get out of the new atmosphere into the old, cheering air.
“Come and say good-bye, won’t you?” he called to her.
“S. O. S.—S. O. S.—S. O. S.!” was the cry in her heart, but she called back to him from her lips, “I can’t. I’m too busy. Come back soon, soldier.”
With a wave of the hand he was gone. “Not a care in the world she has,” Crozier said to Jesse Bulrush. “She’s the sunniest creature Heaven ever made.”
“Too skittish for me,” responded the other with a sidelong look, for he had caught a note in Crozier’s voice which gave him a sudden suspicion.
“You want the kind you can drive with an oatstraw and a chirp—eh, my friend?”
“Well, I’ve got what I want,” was the reply. “Neither of us ‘ll kick over the traces.”
“You are a lucky man,” replied Crozier. “You’ve got a remarkably big prize in the lottery. She is a fine woman, is Nurse Egan, and I owe her a great deal. I only hope things turn out so well that I can give her a good fat wedding-present. But I shan’t be able to do anything that’s close to my heart if I can’t get the cash for my share in the syndicate.”
“Courage, soldier, as Kitty Tynan says,” responded Jesse Bulrush cheerily. “You never know your luck. The cash is waiting for you somewhere, and it’ll turn up, be sure of that.”
“I’m not sure of that. I can see as plain as your nose how Bradley and his clique have blocked me everywhere from getting credit, and I’d give five years of my life to beat them in their dirty game. If I fail to get it at Aspen Vale I’m done. But I’ll have a try, a good big try. How far exactly is it? I’ve never gone by this trail.”