"To-morrow's Tuesday," she said. "Now look here, Miss von Essen, your father--" "My father's aunt's rheumatism!" she said. "Father's in New York, and you promised." "I know I promised, but in the circumstances you ought to let me off. He didn't exactly welcome me with open arms, and the Lord only knows what he'd do if I took you flying." "You promised," she repeated, stubbornly. "I know," he said, with the elaborate pretense of patience one shows to a difficult child, "but--" "And I'm not afraid of father. To-morrow morning? I'll be ready as early as you like." "Nine-thirty, then," he said, helplessly, "at the hangar." She beamed on him. "You're a duck, Mr. Waite," she said, "and I'll not let father hurt you." She drove on and left him looking after her. What a flamelike little thing she was, he thought. What he did not think was--how like she was to himself; how her restlessness matched his; how her recklessness and his recklessness were cut off the same piece. And she was charming in an exciting sort of way. "If she ever cuts loose--" he said to himself. He drove home and went up to his own rooms to sit down with his pipe and figure matters out. Almost word for word he could repeat what the major had said to him, and he looked for answers to the major's questions. Did he love his country? What would he do if war came? What ought he to do?... The first was hardest to answer. He had not been accustomed to the idea of love of country, but had been contented with the thought that America was a good-enough place and he was generally satisfied with it. He tried picturing to himself the invasion of Michigan by German troops; the re-enacting of the crime of Louvain upon the city of Detroit. His imagination was vivid, active.... As he created the picture he felt emotion welling up within him, a sense of the unbearableness of what he had imagined, the feeling that he could not endure the happening of such a catastrophe. It was not reason, but heart, that told him there was nothing he would not sacrifice, suffer, endure to prevent it--and then he asked himself why.... It seemed, then, that he did love his country. In that event--what? CHAPTER V Hildegarde von Essen sprang boyishly out of her roadster at the door to Potter Waite's hangar. She looked like a glorious, slender boy in the riding-breeches and puttees she had thought appropriate for the adventure--not like an ordinary boy, but rather like some princeling out of a fairy-tale. There was that air about her--the air of a prince who trafficked with fairies and would ride forth to battle with giants and dragons. Her eyes danced with excitement and anticipation; she was charged with eager life until it seemed to radiate from her and to form a tingling aura about her.