Silence for a few minutes.

"In a week, did you say?"

"Positively."

"Well, I'll be ready," she said solemnly.

He kissed her tenderly, lovingly, pressed her cold hand and said encouragingly:

"We'll meet in New York next Monday afternoon. Leave everything to me, dear. It will be much pleasanter to go by way of London and it will help to kill a good deal of time."

"Hugh," she said, smiling faintly, "I think we're proving that father was right. I can't possibly arrive at the age of discretion until I am twenty-three and past."


CHAPTER II

THE BEGINNING OF FLIGHT