"A woman," he whispered, finally, the words lingering on his lips. "A woman, eh? Strange—very strange!"
Resolutely he forced himself to consider the plans he had laid out; his success thus far; the means he meant to take with the attacking squadrons; the consummation of his whole campaign so vast, so overpowering in its scope.
But through it all, persisted other thoughts. And these, he found, he could not put away.
The buzzer of the desk-telephone again recalled him to himself.
"Hello, hello?"
"I have to report that a third squadron has been ordered into the air, from Monrovia," announced Menendez.
"Very well! Anything else?"
"No, sir."
The Master hung up the receiver, arose, and seemed to shake himself from the kind of torpor into which his thoughts of the woman had plunged him.
"Enough of this nonsense!" growled he. "There's work to be done—work!"
With fresh energy he flung himself into the task of planning how to meet and to repel the three air-fleets now already on the westward wing to capture or annihilate the Flying Legion.