Elinor struggled to suppress a giggle, and with a sombre look, replied, “Why, yes—surely—I guess everybody does.”
“My mother made swell pie,” he explained. “You don’t get much of that sort of thing knockin’ around in this racket. Sometimes I sorta want to quit it all and get a regular job where I can have a home and——”
“Yes, I understand,” she interrupted. “Men want that kind of a life after a certain age, don’t they, Panama?”
“I don’t know about that,” he said, a trifle piqued at her mention of his advancing years, “I ain’t so old!”
She gasped slightly, realizing that she had hurt him by her thoughtless remark and hurried to explain, “Why, of course you’re not! What I meant was——”
“Oh, it’s all right, I don’t mind,” he said. “I don’t mind anything you say!”
They had reached the end of the road by this time, and Panama took the girl’s arm, turning off to the right, making sure that they would take the longest way back to camp.
Just ahead of them was the thatched roof hut of a native family, no different from hundreds of others that dotted the landscape throughout that section of the country.
A proud young mother sat on the doorstep, nursing a dark-skinned infant. As the Marine and the girl approached, she looked up at them and smiled, showing two rows of white, pearly teeth. Panama left the road and walked over to the hut, picking the baby up in his arms as Elinor followed after him.
“Gee, I get a great kick out of all kinds of babies!” he announced with enthusiasm, looking over his shoulder at Elinor, who was standing just behind him. “Do you like kids?”