Pleading that the roar of the motor had deafened me, I climbed up onto the passenger seat.

“It is beyond doubt, monsieur, that you are sane,” I said.  “But it is equally certain that you propose the act of a madman.  Fortunately I have accompanied you, and it is impossible to rise from the ground with my weight on the tail, and my grip upon the elevator wires.”

“Meaning that you refuse to let me ascend?”

“Most categorically!”

“But why?” he demanded.  “Do you want Miss Warren to think that I was only bluffing, after all?  I promised to show her something startling, and I’m going ahead with it.”

“To begin with, it would be suicide,” I rejoined.  “In addition, you would be inflicting gratuitous distress upon mademoiselle.”

At this he rose from his seat with the first sign of emotion I had seen in his manner.

“And what is it that she has inflicted for months on me?” he demanded hotly.  “And on her father, too, and on all her friends?  We can’t pick up a newspaper any day, without going cold with fear that we will read of her maimed or dead in some accident.  After all, it’s only her own medicine.”

He took off the black leather helmet, placed it on the seat, and wiped the motor grease from his brow.  When he spoke again, it was in the even tones of a man who issues an ultimatum against an intolerable situation.

“There has been altogether too much of this flying business.  It’s no game for a girl.  There is getting to be too much of this count thing.  We don’t want his sort around here.  I’ve known Ella Warren since she was as big as a glass of milk!  Do you think I am going to stand down for the first scented dago—­forgive me if I speak disrespectfully of your countryman—­whom she chooses to bring across the Atlantic at her heels?  No, sir!  It has to be stopped somewhere.”

He halted a moment, and regarded me carefully.  I could see that he was measuring with his eye the distance between us.

“I’m going to scare her stiff,” he said, nodding.  “Get down off this plane, Monsieur Lacroix!”

“Pardon me,” I replied, with a low bow.  “But that is for you to do.”

And before he could seize me, with one blow of the foot planted suddenly in his chest I shot the young Monsieur Power squarely off his biplane onto the grass.  Even as he measured his long length on the ground, I had seized the controls, and the aeroplane spurted fifty yards ahead of him.  Ever since he had removed the black casquette, a wild idea, of a dramatic quality irresistible, had formed itself in my brain.  I now seized the helmet and thrust it down upon my own head.

“It shall be finished as you wish,” I cried.  “But it is I, Lacroix, who am best qualified for the task!”

For I had seen, during that wild flight over the ground as I clung to the frail framework of the tail, a figure that I loved—­a figure in brown, tall and graceful before the white hangars, a figure that clasped its hands in terror.  And some instinct told me that the life of this Monsieur Power was necessary to the happiness of my beloved mademoiselle.  I knew also that I alone without undue risk might break down the barrier of iron pride that had arisen between these two autocratic young people.