"Sixty-four! Great Christmas!"
The exclamation came from the officer. He had leaned forward and scanned the indicator eagerly.
"We'll do better when we have our new type of motor installed," said Peggy, with a confident nod. The young fellow gasped.
"This is the twentieth century with a vengeance," he murmured, sinking back in his rear seat, which was as comfortably upholstered as the luxurious tonneau of a five-thousand-dollar automobile.
Like a darting, pouncing swallow, seeking its food in mid-air, the Golden Butterfly swooped, soared and dived in long, graceful gradients above the Mortlake plant. Once Peggy brought the aeroplane so close to the ground in a long, swinging sweep, that it seemed as if it could never recover enough "way" to rise again. Even the officer, trained in a strict school to repress his emotions, tightened his lips, and then opened them to emit a relieved gasp.
So close to the gaping machinists and the anger-crimsoned Mortlake did the triumphant aeroplane swoop, that Peggy, to her secret amusement could trace the astonished look on the faces of the employees and the chagrined expression that darkened Mortlake's countenance.
"I guess I've given them something to think over," she said mischievously, flinging back a brilliant smile at the dazed young officer.
"Now," she exclaimed the next moment, "for a distance flight. I'm anxious to put the Golden Butterfly through all her paces. Oh, by the way, the balancer. I haven't shown you how that works yet."
If Peggy's bright eyes had not been veiled by goggles, the officer might have seen a mischievous gleam flash into them, like a wind ripple over the placid surface of a blue lake.
Suddenly the aeroplane slanted to one side, as if it must turn over. Peggy had banked it on a sharp aerial curve. The young officer, in spite of himself, in defiance of his training, gave a gasp.