“It is enough!  It is enough!” Chirac shouted passionately several times to a knot of men who began to argue with him.

Then he gazed round furtively, and with an inflation of the chest and a patting of his fur coat he came directly towards Sophia.  Evidently Sophia’s position had been prearranged between him and Carlier.  They could forget food, but they could think of Sophia’s position!

All eyes followed him.  Those eyes could not, in the gloom, distinguish Sophia’s beauty, but they could see that she was young and slim and elegant, and of foreign carriage.  That was enough.  The very air seemed to vibrate with the intense curiosity of those eyes.  And immediately Chirac grew into the hero of some brilliant and romantic adventure.  Immediately he was envied and admired by every man of authority present.  What was she?  Who was she?  Was it a serious passion or simply a caprice?  Had she flung herself at him?  It was undeniable that lovely creatures did sometimes fling themselves at lucky mediocrities.  Was she a married woman?  An artiste?  A girl?  Such queries thumped beneath overcoats, while the correctness of a ceremonious demeanour was strictly observed.

Chirac uncovered, and kissed her hand.  The wind disarranged his hair.  She saw that his face was very pale and anxious beneath the swagger of a sincere desire to be brave.

“Well, it is the moment!” he said.

“Did you all forget the food?” she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.  “What will you?  One cannot think of everything.”

“I hope you will have a safe voyage,” she said.

She had already taken leave of him once, in the house, and heard all about the balloon and the sailor-aeronaut and the preparations; and now she had nothing to say, nothing whatever.

He shrugged his shoulders again.  “I hope so!” he murmured, but in a tone to convey that he had no such hope.

“The wind isn’t too strong?” she suggested.

He shrugged his shoulders again.  “What would you?”

“Is it in the direction you want?”

“Yes, nearly,” he admitted unwillingly.  Then rousing himself:  “Eh, well, madame.  You have been extremely amiable to come.  I held to it very much—­that you should come.  It is because of you I quit Paris.”

She resented the speech by a frown.

“Ah!” he implored in a whisper.  “Do not do that.  Smile on me.  After all, it is not my fault.  Remember that this may be the last time I see you, the last time I regard your eyes.”

She smiled.  She was convinced of the genuineness of the emotion which expressed itself in all this flamboyant behaviour.  And she had to make excuses to herself on behalf of Chirac.  She smiled to give him pleasure.  The hard commonsense in her might sneer, but indubitably she was the centre of a romantic episode.  The balloon darkly swinging there!  The men waiting!  The secrecy of the mission!  And Chirac, bare-headed in the wind that