VIII
THANKS TO A BUMBLEBEE
"Has he changed much?" Mrs. Galland asked, when she learned that Marta had seen Westerling.
"Jove has reached his own—the very top of Olympus, and he likes the prospect," Marta replied.
The only home news of importance that her mother had to impart related to a tiny strip of paper with the greeting, "Hello, Marta!" that had been dropped from the pilot aeroplane as the Brown aerial squadron flew over the garden after its race with the Gray. She noted Marta's customary quickening interest at mention of Lanstron's name. It had become the talisman of a hope whose fulfilment was always being deferred.
"How different Lanny and Westerling are!" Marta exclaimed, the picture of the two men rising before her vision. "Lanny trying so hard under the pressure of his responsibility not to be human and unable to forget himself, and Westerling trying, really trying, to be human at times, but unable to forget that he is Jove! Did you wave your acknowledgments to Lanny,'?"
"Why, no! How could I?" asked Mrs. Galland. "He went over so fast I didn't know it was he—a little figure so far overhead."
"It's odd, but I think I'd know Lanny a mile away by a sort of instinct," said Marta. "You know I'd like a gun that would fire a bomb and drop a message of 'Hello, yourself!' right on his knee. Wouldn't that give him a surprise?"