The young Monsieur Power was regarding her, I noticed, with a sort of curious reserve.

“Maybe there’s something in that,” he said.  “You mustn’t get the idea that I’ve altered my ground in the least, Ella.”

“But you are flying yourself, now!”

“Certainly, but that doesn’t mean that I approve of it as an amusement for you.”

“When did you begin?”

“Last month, when I bought the machine.  Since then I’ve been practicing around home.”

The girl started from him in amazement.

“Last month!  Why, don’t you know you might have killed yourself, cutting capers on a day like this?”

“Precisely what I have allowed myself to point out to monsieur,” I interposed.  “He attempted feats full of danger even for the expert.”

“Well, I guess that’s all right,” he responded shortly.  “A man’s life wasn’t given to him to nurse.  Besides, flying is a great relief after a week in the city.”

I turned aside, then, to superintend the disposal of the aeroplanes in their sheds, as it had become evident that a gale was in prospect.  It was some minutes later that I received a sudden intimation from Miss Warren that she desired my presence outside her hangar.

“Mademoiselle wishes you to denounce the young American monsieur,” added on his own account the mechanic who brought the message.

I found her confronting Monsieur Power, who was leaning in an attitude characteristically immobile against the landing carriage of his machine.  The Comte de Chalons stood on one side, pulling at his mustache and staring from one to the other.  Monsieur Power chewed a grass stem and smiled in a fashion a little narquois.

“Why not give in, Ella, and admit you have been in the wrong?  You know you’ll have to come to it, sooner or later.”

He spoke quite pleasantly, but the girl’s magnificent dark eyes were blazing with suppressed anger.

Give in!  A thing unheard!  She had never suffered compulsion in a young lifetime of following her own sweet way, this dollar princess.  As they gazed upon each other, I could see a titanic battle of wills in progress beneath the outward calm of the discussion.

“You would not be so foolhardy, Jack,” she said, controlling her voice with an effort.  “You know, or at least if you don’t know, Monsieur Lacroix and everybody else does, that you couldn’t live two minutes in this wind.”

“Monsieur Power, you are annoying mademoiselle in a grave degree,” broke in the count, suddenly glaring.  “My friends will lose no time in waiting on you.”

The American swung round with one of those rapid, definite movements so habitual with him.

“Don’t trouble your friends,” he replied.  “We can do without them.  Come up and fly with me right away.  We’ll toss a quarter to decide who steers.”

“It would be madness!” exclaimed the count, and his jaw dropped.