"He showed no anger or surprise, apparently accepting the situation in the most friendly spirit. He says he thought she was relieved, having expected a scene with him. When he had disarmed her of her suspicions, he told her of the airship and asked her if she wouldn’t like to come up for a spin before Reddy arrived. They had over half an hour and he could take her for a short flight and would bring her down in ten or fifteen minutes. "Everybody agrees that she was a bold, venturesome girl, and the idea appealed to her, as she had never been up. They walked quickly through the fields and bit of woodland to the aeroplane. She was in high spirits as she tucked herself in; he could hear her laughter as he took his seat, and then, closing the cut-out, they soared up. "They rose high—about two thousand feet, he thought—and then he headed East. They were winging their way over Cokesbury Lodge on toward the hills in the distance when Reddy must have sighted the lights of Longwood as he came down the Firehill Road. "Cokesbury swears he had no intention of kidnapping her. He says he had no definite idea of where he was going, that his plan was simply to get her away from Reddy and put an end to the marriage. Personally, I don’t believe him. I think he had a perfectly clear idea of carrying her off to Cokesbury Lodge, and that his chivalrous scheme was to put her into such a compromising position she would be willing to marry him. Maybe I’m wrong—I don’t know. Anyway, he very soon saw you can’t abduct a high-spirited, hot-tempered girl against her will. "After about fifteen or twenty minutes he was conscious of her getting uneasy and speaking to him—words that he couldn’t hear but that he knew to be at first startled questions, then angry commands. He shouted replies, but the great machine kept steadily on its way, neither turning nor dipping downward. Then she realized and broke into a fury, turning upon him in the dark, putting her face close to his and screaming for him to bring her down. The noise made it impossible to argue with her, and fearful of what she might do, he held her off with his elbow, the delicately balanced machine swaying as she seized his arm and shook it, lunging up against him, her cries of rage rising above the thunder of the screw. "Can’t you imagine it? The big ship sailing through the night with the lights of farms and little towns sliding by far below, and above the sky muffled deep in black clouds. Poised between them the man and woman, each gripped by a different passion—suspended there like two naked souls in a sort of elemental battle of the sexes.