But his efforts were not long continued. He sat gravely listening, or covertly watching Cantor and thinking of Hildegarde. It seemed impossible, monstrous, that he should sit peaceable at the same table with that man and restrain his fingers from the man’s throat.
Suddenly he leaned forward and listened. He could not have told why, but the word “aeroplane” had touched his ear. It was a charm to command his attention; it had called to his subconscious self.
“Yes,” O’Mera was saying, “I’m going to have a try at it next week.”
“You’ve picked the only branch worth a man’s while,” Cantor said, and Potter was conscious of wonder at the enthusiasm that flamed an instant in the man’s voice. He had known Cantor well. Cantor had been about his hangar, yet the man had never shown an especial interest in aviation.
“They’ve loaded me up with the notion that I’ve got to work,” O’Mera said. “Maybe so, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be about as easy to drive a ’plane as it is a car.”
Potter glanced sidewise at Cantor, saw his eyes were extraordinarily bright, his usually colorless cheeks were tinged with red. The wine was exhilarating him, stirring his blood to quickened movement and unleashing his tongue. Usually there was an air of reserve, the appearance of weighing each utterance, about him. It was not evident now. Potter set himself to listen.
“You’ll find enough to learn,” Cantor said, and plunged into an explanation of what must be learned and how it must be gone about—an explanation that was thorough, interesting, full of expert information. Potter was astonished. He was something more than astonished, he was filled with a thrilling excitement, the excitement that comes to a man when he feels he is standing at the gate of some climax.
Cantor was explaining such erudite matters as the tail-spin, the nose-dive, looping the loop, and how one gave his machine the spurious appearance of fluttering downward out of control—so to deceive an unwary adversary. He was very clear, very positive. No man, thought Potter, could talk like that who was not a master of the air, who had not been a super-skilled pilot.... What did it mean? Where had Cantor flown? Why had he concealed this ability?
“They tell me,” O’Mera said, “that we’ll get the final touches in France or Italy or Egypt. I hope I go to France. Somehow flying in northern Italy, with Alps sticking up under one, doesn’t sound attractive.”
“It’s not bad,” said Cantor, confidentially, “not really bad. Just fly high enough. What’s the difference what’s under you?”