“Yes?” Billy could not keep the coldness out of his voice. He was hearing again the tender eagerness in her tone as the Kid bent over her twenty minutes before.
“Oh, I don’t wonder you speak in that Alaska voice, Billy; but you don’t know everything. Billy, dear, won’t you trust me? Just for a few days?”
“I—I’d like to,” he sent back huskily over the wire. Even at that distance he could feel her power over him, hear the caress in each word.
“You may, Billy. And you won’t be sorry. Good-night.”
Without another word she hung up, leaving Billy a trifle comforted but more perplexed than ever.
CHAPTER V
ERMINIE FUMBLES THE GAME
TWO weeks later came the annual Junior picnic. It was a variation this year in being set for evening. They had chartered a steamer and were to stop at one of the wildest points on A-mo-té Island.
There was merely a little clearing, with one or two rustic pavilions for shelter against rain, and the dancing platform. This last was rated the best out-of-doors dancing floor anywhere around the city or its suburbs, and was correspondingly popular with young people.
Billy started off in fine spirits with a basket his mother had prepared, and a proud feeling that he would not be ashamed to open it in the presence of any girl. He had begged Erminie to let him bring the luncheon for the two of them; and when he met her as agreed at the trolley line transfer point, care-free, erect and strong, his eyes shining with anticipation, it was little wonder that he saw an answering look of pleasure and pride in her eyes. He was a young man any girl might feel it a privilege to know; better still, older and deeper-seeing ones, mothers, would turn to observe him and wish their own sons might be like him.