Miss Bridger may have been surprised, and she may or may not have been pleased; Billy could only guess at her emotions--granting she felt any. But she smiled down at him and permitted the arms to receive her, and she also permitted--though with some hesitation--Billy to lead her straight away from the wagon and its occupants and from the gyrating Pilgrim to the deep delights of the grove.
"Mr. Walland is a good rider, don't you think?" murmured Miss Bridger, gazing over her shoulder.
"He's a bird," said Billy evenly, and was polite enough not to mention what kind of bird. He was wondering what on earth had brought those two together and why, after that night, Miss Bridger should be friendly with the Pilgrim; but of these things he said nothing, though he did find a good deal to say upon pleasanter subjects.
So far as any one knew, Charming Billy Boyle, while he had done many things, had never before walked boldly into a picnic crowd carrying a blue parasol as if it were a rifle and keeping step as best he might over the humps and hollows of the grove with a young woman. Many there were who turned and looked again--and these were the men who knew him best. As for Billy, his whole attitude was one of determination; he was not particularly lover-like--had he wanted to be, he would not have known how. He was resolved to make the most of his opportunities, because they were likely to be few and because he had an instinct that he should know the girl better--he had even dreamed foolishly, once or twice, of some day marrying her. But to clinch all, he had no notion of letting the Pilgrim offend her by his presence.
So he somehow got her wedged between two fat women at one of the tables, and stood behind and passed things impartially and ate ham sandwiches and other indigestibles during the intervals. He had the satisfaction of seeing the Pilgrim come within ten feet of them, hover there scowling for a minute or two and then retreat. "He ain't forgot the licking I gave him," thought Billy vaingloriously, and hid a smile in the delectable softness of a wedge of cake with some kind of creamy filling.
"I made that cake," announced Miss Bridger over her shoulder when she saw what he was eating. "Do you like it as well as--chicken stew?"
Whereupon Billy murmured incoherently and wished the two fat women ten miles away. He had not dared--he would never have dared--refer to that night, or mention chicken stew or prune pies or even dried apricots in her presence; but with her own hand she had brushed aside the veil of constraint that had hung between them.