"Not much fear of that," she replied, with an odd little wry smile. "Mr. Martin said to me, he said, 'This here education makes a man queer to live with. If it isn't idees,' he said, 'it's niceness; and if it isn't niceness it's bloody obstinacy,' he said. . . . And I do try, Renny, I do reelly, though of course if I hadn't the work during the day I should feel it more." "What would you feel?" "Well, I don't know. Oh, you know, when you look at things a long time, and when you like to sit and smoke and look inside yourself." "I didn't know I did that. I don't see much if I do." "Well, you do. And I asked Mr. Martin about it and he said it was education, and he said his brother-in-law was like that before he went off his head with religion. And often when I look at you and you are like that I want to put my arms round you and hold you until you stop doing it, and begin to think of me a little." "But I do think of you all the time." Then she put her arms round him and held him close until he forgot all but her in the dark pleasure that is called love. And again he drifted and supposed himself content, until one day when a young man hailed him and told him to drive to Islington where there was an exhibition of modern engineering. Halfway there, the young man stopped the car, leaped out excitedly, gripped René by the arm, and cried: "Good Lord, if it isn't old René!" It was Kurt Brock. "I say!" he said. "What a find!" "The taxi's mounting up," said René. "I say, you take me out to Hendon and we'll have a yarn. They told me you were still at it, and I was meaning to come and see you, but I'm up to my eyes in work. Let me drive." He took the wheel and sent the car whizzing through the traffic at a speed that made René cry out in protest that he'd have him run in and his license forfeited. Kurt slowed down a little. "Cars crawl so," he said, "once you've tried a flier." "I've seen your name in the papers." "Yes. I won my first race, Glasgow to Edinburgh round the coast of Scotland. Bit stiff, some of it, with mist and rain. I say, I _am_ glad to see you. You're looking fit. Better life than mugging away with books, what? Though I don't know that I'd care about being out in the streets in all weathers, what?" "Oh, you get used to that. I hate it when the engine goes wrong and I have to stay at home." They reached Hendon and Kurt took his old friend to see his new monoplane. "Like to go up in her? She's a snorter. Takes the air like a bird; you can feel her planes stretching to the air, and the engine's like a cat."