“Why do you always say that—that—about the last crash, Billy?”
“Why—why, I don’t know. Just a habit—means something a long ways off, I guess.”
“Oh!” said Jennie, a faint tremor in her voice. “I—I hope so, Billy.”
“Why, Jennie⸺”
“Nothing, Billy—nothing at all. A foolish idea. It’s gone.”
She paused, looked away, then turned her face to his again.
“And just what,” she questioned, a little timidly, a little eagerly, “did you mean, Billy, about—about the ship—and—and me?”
Billy Cobb drew a deep breath.
“I will show you—dear,” he said.
At ten o’clock a single figure moved through the moon-cast shadow of the pilotage hut. At the edge of the shadow the figure paused. There was a little noise—such a noise as tokens the parting of close-pressed lips. The single figure became twain. Billy Cobb and Jennie Brent emerged reluctantly into the argent flood that bathed the airdrome and passed again along the row of canvas stables where the airplanes slept, under the silver benediction of the moon.