"Why not, Miss? Of course he will—though perhaps he may need rest for a time," Captain Jourdin added, with a flicker of meaning in his eyes. "Perhaps they will give him a furlough at home. In that case we can fly together here. I shall meet him with much pleasure."
He rose a moment later to take leave, and Captain Brent, lingering a few moments after him, said, "Do you know what he's hoping for? He's no end cheerful lately. Some doctor in New York is doing wonders for his ankle. He even promises Jourdin that he can get back into the service. The French surgeons will give him every chance to pass."
"Well, I should think so!" cried Lucy with enthusiasm. "Wouldn't that be great? I suppose he'll do all those wonderful feats over again. It must be fun thinking about the great things you've done, even if you don't want to talk them over."
"You bet it must be!" said Captain Brent, smiling. "You'll see Bob wearing no end of medals and crosses yet. He's got the true aviator's spirit. I must get back to my quarters and go to bed," he added, as Lucy gave him a delighted smile at this praise of her brother. "We are out on parade to-morrow. Every airplane that can wriggle its propeller is to fly, so I'll have to be on the field early."
No part of the post's war activity was so absorbing to Marian as the aviation school. At Captain Brent's words her eyes brightened with eager interest, as she inquired of him the hours for which the trial flights were scheduled.
"We'll go, Lucy," she said, and Lucy laughed agreement.
"Don't leave any machines around loose, Captain Brent," she cautioned, "or you'll find Marian curled up in the observer's seat in disguise. If Bob comes home I know she means to persuade him somehow to take her up."
Marian was still rather timid about sudden dangers or emergencies, but the smooth, swift flight of an airplane seemed utterly delightful to her, and as far back as September, in the midst of her shy reserve, she had understood Bob's longing for a place in this splendid new arm of the service.
She and Lucy were early among the crowd that thronged the borders of the aviation field on the following afternoon, and as one machine after the other was rolled out and, gliding down the field on its little wheels, rose toward the clear sunny sky, Marian watched them with sparkling eyes. Captain Jourdin was in one of them, and Lucy picked his machine out at every swerve and loop, by the swift, easy evolutions he performed, so far above their heads that sometimes airplane and pilot looked a gyrating speck among the clouds.