Without a word, he ran through the narrow streets of tents, out on to the main road that led into town. Just ahead of him, he spied the trim, silhouetted figure of the nurse, strolling along in the moonlight.
It was a beautiful tropical night, and the silver-white clouds in the sky and the full, warm moon casting its pure, white light over the black tops of the silent, old Spanish Mission, built hundreds of years before, filled the heart of the soldier with a romantic fervor. His pulse quickened and his step became more buoyant. It was a perfect setting for the scene he had hoped to enact with Elinor that night.
Here was a man and a woman, alone in a great, intoxicating world of warmth and romance, walking in the shadows of an old, ancestral Mission, the walls of which had looked down upon similar romantic episodes enacted by great Spanish grandees and their ladies, long centuries before.
As he ran breathlessly to catch up with the girl, he thought, “If she will respond to this night and background as I have, the rest will be easy.”
“Elinor, wait a moment,” he shouted.
The girl stopped just before the old Mission gate and waited for Panama, now only a few feet away.
“I thought you had forgotten about me,” she said, holding out her hand which the sergeant grasped eagerly as he reached her side.
“Forget about you? Oh, Elinor, I—I couldn’t ever do that! You see, I only landed a few minutes before Steve told me you were here and——”
“I understand,” she interrupted. “It was selfish of me to ask you to meet me when you must be dead to the world.”
Panama smiled sheepishly as he looked down, conscious of the fact that he was still holding her hand in his. They both felt a trifle uncomfortable when Elinor, emitting a nervous, apologetic laugh, released her hand.