He saluted her and said, speaking thickly:
"It is necessary that I have a word with you. Walk with me for one moment. I shall not keep you more!"
He bulked huge in his rig-out, but looked thoroughly at home, and deadly workmanlike. He pushed up his goggles as though conscious that they discounted his personal attractions, and his blue eyes were stony and glittering, and his full mouth showed pale and hard-set under the scarlet roll of his moustache.
"I shall not see you again to-day, and I have something important to tell you." He spoke rapidly and his breathing was harsh and loud. "I have been recalled by my Chiefs and return to Germany in—another two or three days. That we do not meet again before I leave is possible, therefore I wish to give you my address."
She did not look up. A white hand with red hairs growing thick on the back of it offered her a pencilled card. She made no movement to take it. He said, thrusting the card underneath her eyes:
"It is printed here in German letters. You read and speak my language badly, so I will translate for you—'Squadron-Captain-Pilot Count Theodor von Herrnung, Imperial Field Flying Service, Flight Station XXX., Taubefeld, near Diebrich, West Hessen, Germany.' Write your letter to me in English. The address copy from this. Will you not take the card?"
"There is no need to. I do not mean to write to you!"
"Danke. You are candid," he said, "at least. You give me to understand that whatever happens—" he repeated the words with a singular inflection "whatever happens!—you will have no more to do with me?"
"Have I not told you so twice already?"
He gritted his teeth and said, controlling furious anger: