"Oh, are they," he said, and looked away from her (not without effort) to the ginger-haired fellow.
"This," said Gwenna Williams, a little self-consciously at last, "is Mr. Ryan."
Plenty of self-assurance about him! He nodded and said in a hail-fellow-well-met sort of voice, "Hullo; you're Dampier, are you? Glad to meet you. You see we're hard at it unpacking your engine here." Then he looked towards the opening, the road, and the car—borrowed as usual—in which the young aviator had motored down. There was another large package in the body of the car; a box, iron-clamped, with letters stencilled upon it, and sealed. "Something else interesting that you've brought with you?" said this in sufferable man called Ryan. "Here, André, fetch that box down——"
"No," interrupted young Dampier curtly. The curtness was only partly for this other chap. That sealed box, for reasons of his own and Colonel Conyers', was not to be hauled about by any mechanic in the place. "You and I'll fetch that in presently for Mrs. Crewe."
"Right. She'll be back at three o'clock," Ryan told him. "She told me to ask you to have a look round the place or do anything you cared to until she came in."
"Oh, thanks," said young Dampier.
At that moment what he would have "cared to do" would have been to get this girl to himself somewhere where he could say to the Little Humbug, "Look here. You aren't interested in machinery. You said so yourself. What are you getting this carroty-headed Ass to talk to you about it for?"
Seeing that this was out of the question he hesitated.... He didn't want to go round the shops with this fellow, to whom he'd taken a dislike. On sight. He did that sometimes. On the other hand, he couldn't do what he wanted to do—sit and talk to the Little Thing until the Aeroplane Lady returned. What about saying he'd got to look up some one in the village, and bolting, until three o'clock? No. No fear! Why should this other fellow imagine he could have the whole field to himself for talking to Her?
So the trio, the age-old group that is composed of two young men and a girl, stood there for a moment rather awkwardly.
Finally the Little Thing said, "Well, I've got to go back to my wings," and turned.