"I'm waiting," said Prince with a smile.
"He wouldn't take it, would he?" she fenced.
"If it was put up to him right I think he would. Of course, it would be a sacrifice for him to make, but good citizens have to do that these days."
"He's had so much hard luck and been so long getting a start I don't think you ought to ask him." The color spilled over her cheeks like wine shaken from a glass upon a white cloth. Polly was always ardent on behalf of a friend.
"I can't help that. There's another man I have in mind, but if I don't get him it will be up to Jack."
"Will it be dangerous?"
"No more than smoking a cigarette above an open keg of powder. But you don't suppose that would keep him from accepting the job, do you?"
"No," she admitted. "He would take it if he thought he ought. But I hope you get the other man."
Billie dismissed the subject and drew up a chair beside the hammock in which she was leaning back.
"This is my birthday, Polly," he told her. "I'm twenty-four years old."