Peggy turned swiftly, indignantly. Her color flamed and her eyes blazed angrily. Jess, hardly less indignant at the sneering tone and words, also faced about.
“Good morning, girls,” said Fan Harding, easily, raising his motoring cap nonchalantly, “I came to see the ascension, but I’m afraid that it’s going to be a descension.”
“I think you’re hateful to talk like that,” cried Peggy, angrily, stamping her foot. “Our aeroplane will rise. It just will, I tell you—oh, gracious!”
She broke off in confusion and stood aghast for a moment. The swiftly scudding aeroplane had stopped its skittering over the grass and had come to an abrupt stop at a distance of about five hundred yards.
Already the boys were running across the turf toward it at top speed. The girls could see Mr. Homer clambering out of the chassis as the machine came to a standstill.
“Ha! Ha! just as I thought,” chuckled Fan Harding, viciously, “that thing is a dead failure.”
Poor Peggy, tears in her eyes at this seeming disaster, was stung fairly out of herself. She switched round on Fan Harding with a suddenness that made her skirt fly out and that young gentleman step precipitately backward.
“It isn’t a failure, Fan Harding,” she cried, with blazing eyes. “How dare you come here to sneer at us. We didn’t invite you. Oh, I could––”
But Jess had seized her arm and succeeded in checking Peggy just in time. She whispered something to the indignant girl, who, with a scornful look at Fan Harding, turned and, with her friend, ran lightly off toward the stranded aeroplane.
“By Jove, I really thought for a minute she was going to slap my face,” chuckled Fan Harding to himself. “How pretty she is when she is angry. But I guess if she knew what I do about certain affairs she wouldn’t be quite so fresh with me.”