Father hesitated, but the newspapers and people at the Embassy ball who knew all about Eagle March had spoken so highly of the machine, that it seemed an insult to a famous airman's skill to refuse. The two mechanics wheeled the monoplane out of the shed, and Captain March explained how easy and safe he could make things for a passenger. Lots of men had been up with him, but he had never asked a woman. "Only a short flight, I'll take her," he almost pleaded. "I can give her a helmet. Perhaps you'd rather go first yourself, though, and see what it's like." Father may not have had a particularly good time on earth, but anyhow, he preferred it to atmospheric effects. He said that he had no head for heights, but if Di and Peggy wanted to go, and Captain March was kind enough to take them--er--up, a tiny way into the--er--air, he supposed that in these days he ought not to offer any objections. Captain March had the spare helmet ready (it looked so new and smart, I felt sure he had bought it for the occasion), and nothing stood between Diana the Huntress and her quarry--nothing except her own changing mood. I think it was the look of the helmet which gave her that sinking feeling of irrevocability which seems to sever you, as with a sword, from all the dear little safe things that have made up your life in the past. She glanced from the helmet which the airman held toward her to the monoplane spread-eagling on the ground. I saw her big eyes dilate as they fixed themselves anxiously on the passenger's perch, to which the honoured guest must climb, above the conductor's seat, crawling through the wire stays, or whatever you call them, which were like a spider's web inviting a fly. Diana turned pale. Even her lips were white. The shadows under her eyes darkened as if she were ill. "You're--you're sure it's safe?" she faltered. "Safe as a house. Safer than a _jerry_-built house," Captain March assured her cheeringly. "Look at these!" and he pointed out again all the features of his invention that made the automatic stability of the machine. "But if you----" "Oh! I'm not afraid," quavered Di, her eyes roving in an agonized way over the crowd collecting to see the lovely girl taken up into the sky by the brave airman. "It isn't that. Only--it won't make me seasick, will it?" "I've never had a passenger seasick," said Eagle. "And--you won't turn upside down, will you?" "Of course not!" "Well, then, I--I'll go." On with the condemned cap!--I mean the leather helmet. Diana's paling beauty was blotted out. Wrapped in her fur-lined cloak, she was trembling all over. Her hands, which she held confidingly out for the thick mittens Captain March had got for her, shook like the last leaves on a frozen tree. "Think you're fit for it, Di?" Father asked anxiously. "Yes, indeed!" came hissing through the helmet. But I felt it was only the tonic of other women's envy which was keeping her up. I was envying her, too.