The girl looked down at the ground, probably, he thought, to hide the tears that would come to her eyes. She was so pretty, so serious, so anxious to go up. It evidently wasn't only a whim with her; she really wanted to fly—like Amelia Earhart, and Elinor Smith. How he hated to deny her!
"Isn't there something you could do?" she finally asked. "Take me up as one of your friends—not as a visitor to the aviation field.... Why, Mr. Mackay, suppose your sister came to see you today, wouldn't you be allowed to take her up?"
"Yes," he replied, smiling. "But that would be on my responsibility, not the school's."
"Then," she pleaded, and she was radiant again with enthusiasm, "couldn't I be your responsibility?"
He nodded, won over to her wishes.
"If you put it that way, Miss Carlton, I can't refuse! But I'll have to take you in the plane I'm working on now—making some tests with—and it isn't the most reliable plane in the world. Not one we use to take visitors up in."
"But if it's safe enough for you, it's safe enough for me. I'm satisfied."
"I'm afraid your parents wouldn't be," he objected.
"There I think you're wrong," she asserted. "My father believes in taking chances. He has always let me do dangerous things—ride horseback, and drive a car and swim far out in the ocean.... And my mother is dead."
"Very well, then," agreed Mackay. "Please come over here with me. I have been trying to fix up an old biplane, and I think I have her in shape now. But we'll both wear parachutes for precaution."