She had been struck thus motionless by a thought.
Something had been brought home to her by that sharp and sudden twinge of—Jealousy!
Yes! She knew now! What she felt, and must have been feeling for days past, was what they meant by falling in love.
"That's what I've done!" she thought rapidly; half in consternation, half in delight. "It's beginning to happen what Mr. Swayne was talking about at that tea: the Girl or the Flying Machine!"
She glanced towards the gap in the hedge as if to look at the car that had brought them, motionless by the road-side; she turned her face away from the Airman, who sat lighting a pipe with the shadows of the elm-branches dappling his fair head and shirt-sleeved shoulders.
She was blushing warmly at her own thoughts.
"It's only the flying-machine he cares about! He does like me, too; in a way.... If only he'd forget that other for a minute! But if he won't," thought Gwenna, happening upon an ancient piece of feminine philosophy, "I'd rather have him talking about her than not talking to me at all!"
She spoke aloud, sedately but interestedly.
"Oh, is that a camber?" That light touch of his seemed still upon her wrist, though he had withdrawn it carelessly at once. She paused, then said, "And what was that other thing, Mr. Dampier? Something about an angle?"
"A dihedral angle?" he said, drawing at that pipe. "Oh, that's the angle you see from the front of the thing. It's—look, it's like that."