Yet, even as she realized this, she knew there was no alternative for what must lie ahead. It was Billy Cobb, the man of the air, that she loved, after all. As anything else, in any other rôle, she would not have loved him at the first. As anything else she could not think she might love him to the last. There could be no turning off or backing out. She must take him and the air of which he was an integral part together. She must either master her fear or live with and endure it.
Miserably she sat, with averted face, and stared into the dark, until she found the answer. She felt his troubled eyes seeking and questioning and turned at last to face him—and the issue.
“Billy, dear,” she said, “I am sorry—oh, so sorry—that I couldn’t spare you this. I scarcely knew it was there, myself, you see; and it popped out tonight, and you saw it, before I had learned to handle it. But sooner or later it must have come out. I couldn’t have locked it up inside me forever. So perhaps it is just as well we should have it out now, and over with.”
“You mean you really worry—about my flying, Jennie?”
“You have seen it, Billy. A lie about it now would do no good—only tantalize you.”
“But, Jennie, you never⸺”
“I know, dear. I never did, before.”
“Then why now?”
“Because—because—oh, it’s hard to talk of this, Billy dear! Because I never had anything quite—quite so—so precious at stake!”
“Oh, my gosh!” groaned Billy Cobb.