blazing bonfire of wild passion and romance.

CHAPTER II

The first thing we did when we were in the taxicab was to introduce
ourselves to each other. I told him that I was Marguerite O'Malley, but
that, as I wasn't a bit like a marguerite or even a common or garden
daisy, I'd degenerated into Peggy. I didn't drag in anything about my
family tree; it seemed unnecessary. He told me that he was Eagleston
March, but that he had degenerated into "Eagle." I thought this nickname
suited his aquiline nose, his brilliant eyes, and that eager, alert look
he had of being alive in every nerve and fibre. He told me, too, that he
was a captain in the American army, over in England for the first time
on leave; but before he got so far, I knew very well who he was, for I'd
read about him days ago in Father's _Times_.

"Why, you're the first American who's looped the loop at Hendon!" I
cried out. "You invented some stability thing or other to put on a
monoplane."

He laughed. "Some stability thing or other's a neat description. But
you're right. I'm the American fellow that the loop has looped."

"Now I know," said I, "why you're not at the Derby to-day. Horses at
their fastest must seem slow to a flying man."

"This time you're not right," he corrected me. "I'm not at the Derby
because it isn't much fun seeing a race when you don't know anything
about the horses, and haven't a pal to go with."

"But you must have lots of pals," I thought out aloud. "Every one adores
the airmen."

"Do they? I haven't noticed it."

"Then you can't be conceited. Perhaps American men aren't. I never knew
one before, except in business."

"Good heavens! So you really are a business woman, as well as a
linguist, apparently. At what age did you begin?"

"What age do you take me for now?" I hedged.

"About twelve or thirteen, I suppose, though I'm no judge of girls'
ages, whether they're little or big."

"I'm over twelve," I confessed, and went on hastily to change the
dangerous subject. "But I really did have business with an American. It
was in letters. My father made me write them, though they were signed
with his name. He hates writing letters. I'm so thankful your name isn't
Trowbridge. I hope you aren't related to any Trowbridges?"

"Not one. But why?"

"Oh, because, if you were, you might want to throw me to the wolves--I
mean under the motor buses. We've done the Trowbridges of Chicago a
fearful wrong. We let them our place