“Because—because⸺”
They walked on with no more speech until they reached the pilotage hut beyond the hangars. It was dim and silent. They sat down, side by side, on the low step before the door. Excepting where Hansen and his crew were tucking the silver ship to bed by the flitting light of a trouble-shooter’s lamp, two hundred yards away, no life appeared anywhere on the glooming expanse of the quiet field.
“Jennie,” said Billy Cobb, “I know why that little ship reminds me of you.”
“Why, Billy?”
“Because I love it, too.”
There was just enough of the blue-gray twilight left for Billy to see the widening of her eyes at that and the accentuation of the wistful curve at either corner of her mouth.
She sat considering his face intently. Then she turned away, leaned a little forward, clasped her hands about her knees, and stared off at something he could not see—something in the remote distance, beyond the faintly outlined crests of the western hills.
“You are sure,” she asked at length, very softly, “that it is true—what you have said about the ship and me, Billy?”
“I am sure,” he said. “It is true now, it will always be true, Jennie—till—till the last crash.”
He thought she shuddered just a little. Then: