“It might not be a favor!” she said lightly, and slipped away toward her uncle.
The truck carried Apperson back to town, but Hemingwood stayed out at the field. He did not sleep well, either. Hour after hour he examined himself, mentally, and in the end he decided that he was afraid he was in love.
The succeeding week only made him surer of it. While Apperson was convalescing he spent every possible hour with Gail, but never was the subject closest to his heart mentioned. George Arlington Hemingwood, who had never known what it was to be shy or at a loss, was totally unable to nerve himself for the ordeal of a serious proposal. Night after night he tried, only to stutter off into banal nothings.
That is, until the morning when, Apperson being recovered and the pictures all taken, they were about to take off for home. With a crowd around to watch the take-off, his helmet and goggles on his head and the motor idling along on the warm-up under Apperson’s skillful hand, he impulsively bent over and whispered his plea into her ear. She listened quietly, her hand clasped in his. They were in back of the crowd and for the moment seemed to be inhabiting a little world all their own.
“Can’t you possibly say ‘yes’?” he asked her, his eyes holding hers steadily.
“I’m sorry—but I don’t quite know yet,” she whispered. “I like you better than any man I’ve ever known.” She hesitated, and then leaned close to him and said rapidly, “I think I want to say yes—but George, I’m not sure! Perhaps this summer—”
He pressed her eagerly for a definite answer, but she shook her head. Even so, there was a song on his lips and such a leaping light in his eyes as he got in the ship that Apperson took one look at him, glanced at the flushed face of the girl, and smiled an enigmatic smile below his owl-like goggles.
Hemingwood took off, circled the field, and then obeyed an impulse to give the crowd a parting thrill. He swooped down low over the field and waved a farewell. In the forefront of the crowd he saw Gail, and she was beckoning wildly. For a moment he stared. She was signaling him down!
He landed, taxied the ship to the edge of the field, and turned it around. She appeared alongside the ’plane, her hair whipping in the propeller blast and her eyes glowing warmly. The astonished crowd looked on, wondering, as she put her lips close to his ear and said quickly:
