ch of each other. Now it
happened that one day Mabel had seen Lucy with Urquhart walking down
Bond Street, at noon or thereabouts, and had passed by on the other
side with no more than a wave of the hand. It was all much simpler
than it looked, really, because Lucy had been to James's office, which
was in Cork Street, and coming away had met Jimmy Urquhart in
Burlington Gardens. He had strolled on with her, and was telling her
that he had been waterplaning on Chichester Harbour and was getting
rather bitten with the whole business of flight. "I'm too old, I know,
but I'm still ass enough to take risks. I think I shall get the
ticket," he had said. What ticket? The pilot's ticket, or whatever
they might call it. "I expect you are too old," she had said, and
then-- "How old are you, by the way?" He told her. "We call it
forty-two." "Exactly James's age; and exactly ten years older than me.
Yes, too old. I think I wouldn't."

He had laughed. "I'm certain I shall. It appeals to me." Then he had
told her, "The first time I saw a man flying I assure you I could have
shed tears." She remembered that this was out of his power. "Odd
thing! What's gravitation to me, or I to gravitation? A commonplace
whereby I walk the world. Never mind. There was that young man
breaking a law of this planet. Well--that's a miracle. I tell you I
might have wept. And then I said to myself, "My man, you'll do this or
perish." Then she: "And have you done it?" and he: "I have not, but
I'm going to." She had suddenly said, "No, please don't." His quick
look at her she remembered, and the suffusion on his burnt face. "Oh,
but I shall. Do you wish to know why? Because you don't mean it;
because you wouldn't like me if I obeyed you." She said gravely, "You
can't know that." "Yes, but I do. You like me--assume that--" Lucy
said, "You may"; and he, "I do. You like me because I am such as I am.
If I obeyed you in this I should cease to be such as I am and become
such as I am not and never have been. You might like me more--but you
might not. No, that's too much of a risk. I can't afford it." She had
said, "That's absurd," but she hadn't thought it so.

Mabel came to her for lunch and rallied her. "I saw you, my dear. But
I wouldn't spoil sport. All right--you might do much worse. He's very
much alive. Anyhow, he doesn't wear an--" Then Lucy was hurt. "Oh,
Mabel, that's horrid. You know I hate you to talk like that." Mabel
stood rebuked. "It was beastly o