She lit a cigarette and I noticed her face changed a little. There was an introspective look in the eyes, a look of memory.
"As I drew near, Sir Thomas, I saw what I think is the most marvelous sight I have ever seen. You people who crawl about on earth never do see what we see. I have flown over Mont Blanc and seen the dawn upon the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa from that height, and I thought that was the most heavenly thing ever seen by mortal eye. But yesterday morning I beat that impression—yes!—right on the outskirts of London and only a few hours ago! Down from below nobody can really see much of the towers. You haven't seen much, for instance, have you?"
"Only that they're now all linked together at the top by the most intricate series of girders, on the suspension principle, I suppose. There are a lot of sheds and things on this artificial space, or at least it looks like it."
"Sheds and things! Sir Thomas, I thought I saw the New Jerusalem floating on the clouds! The morning sun poured down upon a vast, hanging space of which you can have no conception, and rising up on every side from snowy-white ramparts were towers and cupolas with gilded roofs which blazed like gold. There were fantastic halls pierced with Oriental windows, walls which glowed like jacinth and amethyst, and parapets of pearl.
"It was a city, a City in the Clouds, a place of enchantment floating high, high up above the smoke and the din of London—serene, majestic, and utterly lovely. I tell you"—here her voice dropped—"the vision caught at my heart, and a great lump came into my throat. I'm pretty hard-bitten, too! As I went past one side of the immense triangle—which must occupy several acres—on which the city is built, I saw an inner courtyard with what seemed like green lawns. I could swear there were trees planted there and that a great fountain was playing like a stream of liquid diamonds.
"I was so startled, and almost frightened, that I ripped away for several miles till, descending a little through the cloud-bank, I found I was right over Tower Bridge.
"But I swore I'd see that majestic city again, and I spiraled up and turned.
"There it was, many miles away now, a mere speck upon the billowing snow of the cloud-bank, and as I raced towards it once more it grew and grew into all its former loveliness. I adjusted my engines and went as slow as I possibly could—perhaps you know that our modern aeroplanes, with the new helicopter central screw, can glide at not much more than fifteen miles an hour, for a short distance that is. Well, that's what I did, and once more the place burst upon me in all its wonder. It's the marvel of marvels, Sir Thomas; I haven't got words even to hint at it. I could see details more clearly now, and I floated by among the ramparts on one side, not a pistol shot away. And then, upon the top of a little flat tower there appeared the most extraordinary figure.
"It was a gigantic yellow-faced man in a long robe and wide sleeves, and he threw his hands above his head and cursed me. Of course the noise of the engine drowned all he said, but his face was simply fiendish. I just caught one flash of it, and I never want to see anything like it again."
I sat spellbound in my chair while she told me this and again the sense that I was being borne along, whither I knew not, by some irresistible current of fate, possessed me to the exclusion of all else.