“But you are powerful, Monsieur Warren,” I said, “a commander of the captains of finance.  If you said even that a country should not make war, its cannon would rust in the parks, and its soldiers play leapfrog in the casernes.  Surely you can bend the will of a young girl who is also your daughter?”

The old man’s smile became grim.

“I may be all that you say,” he sighed.  “But, nevertheless, if you chose to wring my neck at this moment, I could do little to prevent you.  Neither dare I stand between an American girl and the desire of her heart.”

I looked with sympathy upon this gaunt, mighty, old warrior of Wall Street, bent under the shadow of apprehension and anxiety, and I knew why he had at last visited Mineola.  And as I looked, I, too, my friend, saw clearly for the first time the reverse of the bright medal of aerial conquest.  I saw the graves of lost comrades, I saw the homes in mourning, I saw mothers who wept for their bravest boys.  Truly the price was heavy, and I knew in my heart that it had not been paid in full.

“Monsieur knows,” I said, “that I was once a poor mechanician.  What I am now, flight has made me, and I have worked for the glory of flight.  But now I perceive that in encouraging mademoiselle your daughter to fly, I have perhaps done wrong.  I promise you that in future I will do my best to dissuade her.”

He rose, and pressed my hand in gratitude.

“I am wealthy,” he said.  “I am rich beyond dreams.  I can buy anything for my little girl that she desires—­except a single moment’s safety up in the air, or a single moment’s true happiness on the earth.  And in pursuit of this flying craze of hers, she may easily miss both.”

He frowned suddenly as we emerged into the sunlight and saw the Comte de Chalons hasten to assist mademoiselle to dismount.  Above the hangars the red storm cone had been hoisted, prohibiting further flight by pupils.  Already the treetops were swaying ominously.

“After all, there are some things that can happen to a girl,” said Monsieur Warren bitterly, “that may well be worse than breaking her neck in an aeroplane.”

He departed in search of his automobile without another word.  But I thought I knew what he meant.

It was at this moment that I first saw him fly, this marvelous birdman of a Hamlin Power.  Away in the direction of New York, so high that he seemed to hang motionless just under the driving clouds, the spectators had caught sight of his huge biplane, and had delayed their departure to watch his approach.  It was Georges, dancing on the grass beside me, who first proclaimed his identity.

“It is he, the crazy pupil!” he cried.  “I have seen through my glass the little silk flag he attached to the nacelle.  Now you are going to marvel that I still live!”

In a few moments the sound of his motor fell faintly on our ears as a whisper from the clouds.  Then—­chut!—­it stopped, and in a single leap he dived a sheer thousand feet.