Pemrose was standing with her aërial out to a gnarled pine-tree.
“Well! I like that. My whisper couldn’t be heard a foot off.... Um-m! I’ve kept the hush up long enough. Are you getting anything?” he stormed, a minute later—a low, growling storm.
The girl amateur’s lips grew a little more faded, a little more drooping, at the corners.
“Just a ghost—ghost of dot an’ dash,” she pleaded. “Very f-faint—far—”
“Bah! Give it up then—come on!” He jerked Cartoon’s head up. “Let’s get going! Give up this foolishness!”
She half withdrew her heel from the black swamp—then drove it deeper, the bog swishing around her.
“I haven’t been five minutes yet—barely five.” She glanced down at her little gold wrist watch—calm link with normal life—it was one which Una had given her.
“And I suppose you’ll waste another five—ten.” He resigned himself to staring at the dim forest, pine and maple half way up the mountain side, dark spruce above—in between the golden-rods dreaming—dreaming against all the black spots on the horizon.
Was he dreaming with them? His heart began to creep, to creep along the waiting minutes—as it had not crept when he felt his plane side-slipping under him, knew that he was doomed to a fiery fall to earth.
The girl was pointing a finger at him—pointing it straight. Something had come into her face which made his knees bend above their khaki leggings.