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Page 124
"Because I was thinking about you," said Billy. Suddenly his tongue
ran away with him. "Incessantly," he added.
She looked up at him. Unguardedly he looked down at her. No one but
a blind girl or a goose could have mistaken that look upon Billy B.
Hill's young face, the frustrate longing of it, the deep desire. The
heart beneath the sky-blue cloak cast off a most monstrous
accumulation of doubts and fears and began suddenly to beat like
mad.
Totally unexpectedly, startlingly amazing, she flung out at him,
"Then what made you stop?"
"Stop?" he echoed. "Stop? I've never stopped! There hasn't been a
moment----"
"There have been three days. Three--horrible--days!"
"Arlee!"
"Do you think I _like_ being snubbed and ignored
and--and--obliterated?" she brought indignantly out. "Do you think I
call that--being friends?"
"I--I wanted to leave you free--not to force your friendship----" he
stammered wildly.
"You couldn't force _mine_," said Arlee Beecher.
"But--but there was Falconer," he protested. "You had to be free
to--to have a choice----"
"A choice? Do you call that a _choice_?"
"I thought you were making it. That first night----"
"I stayed up to dance with _you_," she cried hotly. "You never came
back!"
"But the next day----"
"I _wanted_ to go. But I couldn't keep up any more. I _had_ to
rest.... And you went with Lady Claire!"
"Why, I had to! We'd planned. But when we came back, he was on deck
with you----"
"Yes, and I was waiting up--to see _you_. And you only took two
dances that night----"
"You didn't seem to want me to----"
"I never guessed you wanted them! _I_ had my pride, too. I wasn't
going to be in the way--because you'd rescued me. I thought you
didn't want me in the way!"
"Arlee--my girl--my precious girl----"
"No, I'm not. I'm not."
"Yes, you are," he said fiercely. "I don't care if you are engaged
to Falconer or not, I'm going to tell you so."
"I'm not engaged to Falconer," she protested.
He blurted in bewilderment. "Then what in the world were you doing
up there on that pylon?"
Her elfish laughter disconcerted him. "Do you think one has to get
engaged if she stays on a pylon?... We were getting _not_ engaged."
"I thought--I thought you liked him," he said bewilderedly.
"I did. I do, I mean--but not that way. He--he--Oh, I really _like_
him," she cried tremulously, "but not--we've had it all out and
everything's all over. I'm sorry--sorry--but he'll be really glad
bye and bye. For my story shocked him terribly.... And then there's
Lady Claire. He didn't like to have her down with you even when he
was up with me." She laughed softly. "Oh, I shouldn't have let him
be so friendly here but I did like him and you--you were so--so
hateful."
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