Page:Air Service Boys Flying for France.djvu/53

48 In fact, he found her not in the least averse to talking to him when the first opportunity arose. Jack plumed himself on this circumstance at the time, and fancied that it was because he had an attractive air about him. Later on these aircastles crumbled into ruins and dreadful suspicions arose.

He often played deck quoits with Bessie Gleason, as Jack learned her name was. She was mature in her ways, and yet full of fun. Jack liked her more as he came to know her; and yet in spite of this he admitted to Tom that there was something a bit queer about the girl which he could not quite fathom.

He was talking of her that afternoon when, with his chum, he sat in an exposed part of the promenade deck taking a sun-bath. The day was pleasant, and there was just enough warmth in the sun's rays to make it delightful to loll there.

The sea was fairly rough, and the billows had their foamy crests whipped off as with a knife when breaking in the wind, to be carried away in the shape of spume or spray. The favorite occupation of most of the travelers just then was to sit and look across the heaving waters, their anxious eyes searching for any object that by a stretch of the imagination could be transformed into the periscope of a