Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-04-16

the flying blades; but she dared look below they
turned, and with it first realized their terrific speed.
The swimming plain dizzied her, and with tight-shut
eyes she waited till the giddiness should pass 1t
gone in twinklng, and as they bore triumphantly
She looked again and without vertigo without fear,
she could not in that first pungng look that
they had left the confines of the aerodrome. He
her to remember her first fight! 1t to be per-
functOry circuit of the course! They swung great
climbing circle toward Pau itself.
She with thrill that they already very
high. Her unframed eye could not estimate their
altitude She only knew that home going peasants in
the fields seemed pygmes the trees mere shrubs the
red rooted houses toys, the winding Gave de Pau
ribbon which glttered in the sunset. Only the
blue chain of the distant Pyrenees held its normal place
in the scale Then they swept and at last above
it, the oddly transformed city absorbed her. Pau no
longer crowned ennence. Its site looked scarcely
higher than those of the low lying villages dotting the
plain The chateau had shrunk to insigniticanCe, its
fiat squares the red legged soldiers in the
casern below seemed ants; the Palas Hiver simply
obong spot in the opening of the Pare Beau
MONT the imposing rank of hotels and villas of the
Boulevard des Pyrenees row of humble roofs. 1t was
Pau, and yet not Pau. The sprawling boulevards
assumed too much Importance the Place Royale and
the nober streets unjustly blurred. 1t lay there
in the waning light Invested of character travesty of
ITSELF an i'll drawn, crudely colored, monotonous
map.
and wondered what the mortals were about. On that
stretch of terrace-if that terrace-peope doubt
less still slipped tea, and it might be nudged their
neighbors to look aloft Perhaps her and uncle
Justin secretly Contemptuous of the drnkers-were
among them. Perhaps Mrs. Truscott was informing
all who would listen that they behed her friend Prince
Rodoslav Perhaps Buckley would quote the Alma
mach de Gotha. Then she remembered that
the rising diplomat could hardly be slipping tea
in Pau and holding her horse at the
drome at one and the same time. Poor
Buckley! She would be kind to him here
after as became goddess. The being
who should feel the weight of her august con-
tempt was he who denied her this supreme Ca
perience. She fervently hoped she would find
Page rooted to the spot where she left him.
Her descent would lack something of its tn
umph If he was not there to
THAT moment would Pau 8
L slipped away beneath and they rounded -
northward under sky flooded with saffron -
afterglow and hung with pale moon 1t was
that Ann made the prime discovery of a "
journey packed with surprises. For in
terval she had been hazily aware of phe-
nomenon in the heights. Now she gave it n
conscious heed If such things possible
up here where all changed, she would
have said they had their echo. Somewhere
in the ether a motor seemed to throb, pro-
peller to drone in emulation or defiance of their
AS their curve for instant narrowed,
she threw look backward to nd herself of the
uncanny illusion; but instead of melting into
twilight the fantasy gained substance. She
not only heard pursuit, she it.
Circlng as they crcled, sinking as they sank,
a winged shape followed. Black against the
sky at first, it took definite form as the de-
scending spiral brought it facing the west, and
even its pilot became distinct Tortured, des-
perate. Page confronted her across the abyss;
powerless to aid her if she came to HARM vet
unable to endure suspense below, he could
only follow near and suffer.
Ann shut her eyes with shudder, thrust
ing that agonzed apparton away she had
recoiled from her first sight of the receding
aerodrome. This too brought vertigo. The
glory had faded from her triumph She wanted
only to touch earth and lose herself amid the
homely commonplace of life.
The aviation field spread beneath them
again. YOnder in the dusk lay the low street
OF Sheds Then the engine ceased its tumut
the propeller Its moan, and they planed sound
leSsy down to their starting point, ground