“How would you like me to run you over to see Lucy for a while this afternoon?” he would ask in the lordly and nonchalant manner of big brothers, and Mag would be duly grateful, all the time laughing in her sleeve, as is the way with small sisters.
The only person who ever got ahead of Billy on the homeward voyage was Count de Lestis. That man of the world with lordly condescension permitted Billy to carry all the books and parcels and then quietly appropriated the seat by Nan. That was hard enough, but what was harder was to see how Nan dimpled under the compliments the count paid her, and how gaily she laughed at his wit, and how easily she held her own in the very interesting conversation into which they plunged. Billy, boiling and raging, could not help catching bits of it. Actually Nan was quoting poetry to the handsome foreigner. With wonder her schoolboy friend heard her telling the count of how she had gone up in an aeroplane the preceding summer and what her sensations were. She had never told him all these things.
“And why is it you like so much to fly?” the count asked. “Is it merely the physical sensation?”
“Oh no, there is something else. I’ll tell you a little bit of poetry I learned the other day from a magazine. That is the way I feel, somehow:
“‘Well, good-by! We’re going!
Where?
Why there is no knowing
Where!
We’ve grown tired, we don’t know why,
Of our section of the sky,
Of our little patch of air,
And we’re going, going!
Where?
“‘Who would ever stop to care?—
Far off land or farther sea
Where our feet again are free,
We shall fare all unafraid
Where no trail or furrow’s made—
Where there’s room enough, room enough, room enough for laughter!
And we’ll find our Land o’ Dreaming at a long day’s close,
We’ll find our Land o’ Dreaming—perhaps, who knows?
To-morrow—or the next day—or maybe the day after!
“‘So good-by! We’re going!
Why?
O, there is no knowing
Why!
Something’s singing in our veins,
Something that no book explains.
There’s no magic in your air!
And we’re going, going!
Where?
“‘Where there’s magic and to spare!
So we break our chains and go.
Life? What is it but to know
Southern cross and Pleiades,
Sunny lands and windy seas;
Where there’s time enough, time enough, time enough for laughter!
We’ll find our Land o’ Dreaming, so away! Away!
We’ll find our Land o’ Dreaming—or at least we may—
Tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe the day after!’”
Nan Carter was a very charming girl at any time, but Nan Carter reciting poetry was irresistible. So the count found her. Her eyes looked more like forest pools than ever and the trembling Billy was very much afraid the handsome nobleman was going to fall into said pools. He gritted his teeth with the determination to be on the spot ready to pull him out by his aristocratic and well-shod heels if he should take such a tumble.