Here in the dappled shade and the solitude with him it was heavenly enough; even if she did glance upward at the peeps of sapphire-blue through the leaves and wonder what added rapture it would be to soar to those heights with her lover.
"D'you know how many times you've put me off?" she said presently, fanning the midges away from herself with her broad white hat. "Always you've said you'd take me flying with you, Paul. And always there's been something to stop it. Let's settle it now. Now, when will you?"
"Ah," he said, and flung the stone of the peach he'd been eating into the dark green jungle of bracken ahead of them. "Good shot. I wanted to see if I could get that knob on that branch."
She moved nearer to him and said coaxingly, "What about next Sunday?"
"Hope it'll be as fine as this," he said, smiling at her. "I'd like all the Sundays to be just like this one. Can't think what I did with all the ripping days before this, Gwenna."
She said, "I meant, what about your taking me up next Sunday?"
"Nothing about it," he said, shaking his head. There was a little pause. He crossed his long legs in the grass and said, "Not next Sunday. Nor the Sunday after that. Nor any Sunday. Nor any time. I may as well tell you now. You aren't ever coming flying," said the young aviator firmly to his sweetheart. "I've settled that."
The cherub face of the girl looked blankly into his. "But, Paul! No flying? Why? Surely—It's safe enough now!"
"Safe enough for me—and for most people."
"But you've taken Miss Conyers and plenty of girls flying."