The old are obstinate and selfish. I abhor the entire
proceeding."
Plaudits came from the gay crowd outside as mademoiselle's machine
again roared above the hangars. The old man shook his massive head.
"Of course, you don't see it as I do," he went on. "If you had
considered risks, you would have accomplished nothing. It is natural
that you should think only of the glory and conquest of flight. But I
think of the little girl I held on my knee the night her mother died,
and I can neither stay away in peace when Ella flies, nor can I bear
to watch her."
"But you are powerful, Monsieur Warren," I said, "a commander of the
captains of finance. If you said even that a country should not
make war, its cannon would rust in the parks, and its soldiers play
leapfrog in the casernes. Surely you can bend the will of a young girl
who is also your daughter?"
The old man's smile became grim.
"I may be all that you say," he sighed. "But, nevertheless, if you
chose to wring my neck at this moment, I could do little to prevent
you. Neither dare I stand between an American girl and the desire of
her heart."
I looked with sympathy upon this gaunt, mighty, old warrior of Wall
Street, bent under the shadow of apprehension and anxiety, and I
knew why he had at last visited Mineola. And as I looked, I, too, my
friend, saw clearly for the first time the reverse of the bright medal
of aerial conquest. I saw the graves of lost comrades, I saw the homes
in mourning, I saw mothers who wept for their bravest boys.
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