"Colonel Conyers you've seen...." (That personage had nodded to the young girl over a stack of pink roses and had made a little movement to show the basket of sweets beside his plate.) "Now that man with the Order, that's Lord" (So-and-So), "Director of Coast Defence. And that" (So-and-So), "Chief Engineer. And that little man one down—in the opposite direction from where I'm looking—that's" (So-and-So), "editor of The Air. Wonderful chap; brains enough to sink a ship."
An extraordinary mixture of men, Gwenna thought, as her glance followed his direction, and he went on talking. Soldiers, sailors, chemists, scientists, ministers; all banded together. Ranks and fortunes were merged. Here were men of position, men of brains, men of money. Men whose names were in all the newspapers, and men the papers had never heard of, all with one aim and object, the furtherance of Civilisation's newest advance: the Conquest of the Air.
The dinner proceeded. Pale amber wine whispered and bubbled in her glass, dishes came and went, but the girl scarcely knew what she ate or drank. She was in a new world, and he had brought her there. She felt it so intensely that presently it almost numbed her. She was long past the stage of excitement that manifests itself in gasps and exclamations. She could speak ordinarily and calmly when Paul Dampier, turning from his talk to a Physical Laboratory man in a very badly brushed coat, asked her: "Well? Find it interesting?"
"You know I do," she said, with a grave little glance.
He said, smiling, "What did you say to the red-haired youth about not going to the matinée with him first?"
"Mr. Ryan? Oh! I just told him I hadn't got over my headache from the smell of dope, and that I was afraid it would tire me too much to do both."
"Pretty annoyed, I expect, wasn't he?"
"Yes, he was," replied Gwenna, with the absolute callousness of a woman in love towards the feelings of any but the one man. She did not even trouble whether it had been the feelings or the vanity of Mr. Peter Ryan that had been hurt. What mattered was that Paul Dampier had not wished her to go to that matinée.
Paul Dampier said, "Well, I cried off an engagement to-night, too. Colonel Conyers wanted to take me back with him. But I'm seeing you home."
"Oh, but you mustn't; you needn't!" she protested happily. "I'm not going down to the Works, you know, to-night. I'm sleeping at the Club. I'm staying this week-end with Leslie."