It
was some minutes later that I received a sudden intimation from Miss
Warren that she desired my presence outside her hangar.
"Mademoiselle wishes you to denounce the young American monsieur,"
added on his own account the mechanic who brought the message.
I found her confronting Monsieur Power, who was leaning in an attitude
characteristically immobile against the landing carriage of his
machine. The Comte de Chalons stood on one side, pulling at his
mustache and staring from one to the other. Monsieur Power chewed a
grass stem and smiled in a fashion a little _narquois_.
"Why not give in, Ella, and admit you have been in the wrong? You know
you'll have to come to it, sooner or later."
He spoke quite pleasantly, but the girl's magnificent dark eyes were
blazing with suppressed anger.
Give in! A thing unheard! She had never suffered compulsion in a young
lifetime of following her own sweet way, this dollar princess. As
they gazed upon each other, I could see a titanic battle of wills in
progress beneath the outward calm of the discussion.
"You would not be so foolhardy, Jack," she said, controlling her voice
with an effort. "You know, or at least if you don't know, Monsieur
Lacroix and everybody else does, that you couldn't live two minutes in
this wind."
"Monsieur Power, you are annoying mademoiselle in a grave degree,"
broke in the count, suddenly glaring. "My friends will lose no time in
waiting on you."
The American swung round with one of those rapid, definite movements
so habitual with him.
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