"He came! When I was out!"
"He was awfully sorry——"
But Gwenna, seeming not to hear her friend, broke out: "He said he'd come and settle about taking me flying, and there was I think-ing he'd forgotten all about it, and then he did come after all, and I wasn't here! Oh, Leslie!—--"
Leslie, sitting on the edge of the bath, gave her a glance that was serious and whimsical, rueful and tender, all at once.
"Yes, you can't understand," mourned Gwenna, "but I did so want to go up in an aeroplane for once in my life! I'd set my heart on it, Leslie, ever since he said about it. It's only now I see how badly I wanted it," explained the younger girl, flushed with emotion, and relapsing into her Welshiest accent, as do all the Welsh in their moments of stress. "And now I shan't get another chance. I know I shan't——"
And such was the impetus of her grief that Leslie could hardly get her to listen to the rest of the news that should be balm for this wound of disappointment; namely, that Mr. Dampier was going to make an appointment with both girls to come and have tea with him at his rooms, either on Saturday or Sunday.
"He'll write to you," concluded Leslie Long, "and let you know which. I said we'd go either day, Taffy."
Gwenna, caught up into delight again from the lowest depths of disappointment, could hardly trust herself to speak. Surely Leslie must think her a most awful baby, nearly crying because she'd had an outing postponed! So the young girl (laughing a little shakily) put up quite a plucky fight to treat it all as quite a trifle....
Even the next morning at breakfast she took it quite casually that there was a note upon her plate stamped with the address of the Aero Club. She even waited a moment before she opened it and read in a handwriting as small as if it had been traced by a crow-quill:
"Monday night.