"To tell you the truth," Nigel said hopefully, "I believe that Immelan is losing ground. His whole scheme is too selfish. Of course, Naida won't discuss these things with me in plain words, but she gives me a hint now and then. Amongst her gifts, she has a marvellous sense of justice and a hatred of any form of bribery. That is where I feel convinced that she and Immelan will never come together. Immelan could never see more than the selfish side, even of a world upheaval. Naida searches everywhere for motive. She has the altruistic instinct. I wonder no longer at Matinsky. She is a born ruler herself."
"I'm glad you are getting along with her," Maggie remarked. "Look!" she broke off, catching at his arm. "The violet lights!"
High up in the sky outside, two violet specks of light suddenly rose and fell like airballs. A crowd of mechanics appeared through subterranean doors and stood about in the vast arena. Very soon the airship came into sight, her cars brilliantly illuminated. She circled slowly round and came noiselessly to the ground, and with the mechanics running by her side, and her engines now scarcely audible, came slowly into the shed and to a standstill by the side of the platform. Maggie and her companion stood well in the background.
"There he is," the latter whispered.
Immelan, suddenly appeared as though from the bowels of the earth, was shaking hands warmly with a tall, slender man who was one of the first to descend from the airship. They talked rapidly together for a few minutes. Then they disappeared, walking down towards the luggage-clearing station. Maggie watched the retreating figures earnestly.
"He doesn't look in the least Chinese," she declared.
"I told you he didn't," Nigel replied. "He was considered the best-looking man of his year up at Oxford."
Maggie was unusually silent on their way back.
"It was perhaps scarcely worth our while, this little expedition of ours," Maggie said thoughtfully.
"You're not sorry that we came?" he asked.