on that superb figure of young womanhood as she swung gracefully out toward the gallant machine that awaited her in the sunlight, chatting gayly with her companion as she walked.  She wore a thick-knitted jersey of brown silk, a simple brown skirt, and leather gaiters, and a brown leather automobile cap covered her shining, dark hair.  Like a slim, brown statue she stood at last on the step of her biplane in the breeze, and I saw the Comte de Chalons bend over her hand as he assisted her into the nacelle.

Well, he had reason, that one!  She is a better flier than I can ever make out of him.

A run of fifty yards, and she was aloft with the practiced leap of the expert pilot.  The next minute she was breasting the breeze far above our heads, the rear edges of the huge planes quivering transparent against the sky, her motor roaring impetuously.  As she passed, I had a single glimpse of her face—­bathed in full sunlight, radiant, joyous!

I looked then with curiosity upon the aged Monsieur Warren.  The great financier leaned upon his cane, and I saw that the hand that held it was blue and trembling.  As he gazed skyward, his breath came deeply as in a sob.

“Ah, monsieur,” I thought, with a surge of pride, “it is I, Lacroix, who have enabled you to enjoy a parallel triumph.  She is your daughter whom they applaud, truly—­but she is also my pupil!”

Figure to yourself my surprise, therefore, when he turned to me suddenly in appeal, and, with a hand that trembled on my arm, besought me to take him away.

“I cannot stand it, my dear Lacroix—­it isn’t safe!” he said, in a low voice.

He repeated these words several times, his lip quivering like that of a child who suffers, as I led him into the drawing office of the ateliers.  There he seated himself, bent and gray, upon the edge of an armchair.

“It’s no use, I can’t stand it,” he said again.  “I assure you that I could see the thing shaking, as it passed overhead, in every stick and wire of it.  It can’t be safe!  And there she is, five hundred feet high, with her life hanging on a thread.”

“I assure you also, monsieur,” I protested, “that I have this very morning examined every nut and bolt, every brace and valve and stay in the entire appareil.  Never have I permitted your daughter to ascend without such an inspection.  I would stake my life upon the perfect integrity of the machine.”

He smiled, a little querulously.

“You are accustomed to stake your life, Monsieur Lacroix.  As for me, I am an old man.  The old are obstinate and selfish.  I abhor the entire proceeding.”

Plaudits came from the gay crowd outside as mademoiselle’s machine again roared above the hangars.  The old man shook his massive head.

“Of course, you don’t see it as I do,” he went on.  “If you had considered risks, you would have accomplished nothing.  It is natural that you should think only of the glory and conquest of flight.  But I think of the little girl I held on my knee the night her mother died, and I can neither stay away in peace when Ella flies, nor can I bear to watch her.”