And with another short, deprecating laugh, another shrug to his collar, the boy began to "tell" her things, though the girl did not pretend to understand. She listened to that voice, strong and deep, but womanishly gentle. She forgot that by rights she ought to pay some attention to her neighbour, the imitation Chopin. She listened to this other.
Words like "controls," "pockets," "yawing," went in at one of the ears under her brown curls and out at the other, leaving nothing but a quivering atmosphere of "the wonderfulness" of it all. Presently she saw those hands of his, big, sensitive, clever, arranging forks and spoons upon the sheeny tablecloth before her.
"Imagine that's your machine," he said. "Now you see there are three possible movements. This"—he tilted a dessert-knife from side to side—"and this"—he dipped it—"and this, which is yawing—you understand?"
"No!" she confessed, with the quickest little gesture. "I couldn't understand those sort of things. I shouldn't want to. What I really want to know is—well, about it, like!"
"About what?"
"About flying!"
He laughed outright again. "But, that is flying!"
She shook her head. "No, not what I mean. That's all—machinery!" She pronounced the word "machinery" with something almost like disdain. He looked at her as if puzzled.
"Sorry you aren't interested in machinery," he said quite reprovingly, "because, you know, that's just what I am interested in. I'm up to my eyes in it just now, pretty well every minute that I can spare. In fact I've got a machine—only the drawings for it, of course, but——"
"Do you mean you've invented one?"