Harding shook his head slowly as a shadow of despair darkened his face. “I’m afraid there isn’t a chance!”
“If you don’t mind, sir,” Williams asked, “I’d like to take one more crack at it!”
The major accepted his top sergeant’s act of insubordination with an admiring salute and turned away, leaving Elinor alone and trembling, gazing up at the determined man in the plane.
“Oh, Panama, you don’t think it’s too late, do you?”
“Now don’t worry,” he struggled to reassure her. “I haven’t half looked yet!”
“And you won’t give up, will you?”
“Me?” he asked, trying to hide his own anxiety from the girl’s searching eyes. “Say, forget about it, will you?”
Elinor raised her hand and after a moment of hesitance, allowed her fingers to touch the sleeve of the sergeant’s greasy windjammer.
“Panama,” she whispered in profound admiration, “you’re—you’re the finest man in the whole world!”
He smiled grimly as his eyes closed, dreaming in despair of a happiness that he knew could never be his.