"Then I'll call him a man. The best kind of man going! English—from the top of his nice head to the very tips of his toes."
"How can you tell if he was not a friend of yours? What do you know of him?" He fixed his eyes compellingly on hers.
She answered:
"Nothing but that he flew the Channel yesterday—with Davis—to test his invention—and he has got to be on the wing for home at four."
"So! He has told you all this, and you do not know his name, even? Perhaps it is on that card you hold in your hand?"
She started, and the card fluttered from her twitching fingers to the carpet.
"Allow me...." Von Herrnung stooped as though to retrieve the bit of pasteboard. "Curious! It has gone! ... It is not there!" he said.
"I think you have your foot on it." Her eyeballs ached, she felt weary, and flat, and stale. "Please lift up your foot and let me see if it is there," she urged, and grown suddenly obtuse, he lifted up the wrong foot. She was trying to explain that he had done so when they were rejoined by Courtley and Lady Beauvayse.
"Say, did you see she wore a head-band with a rubber mouth-hold at the back of her neck? And waist-fixings under her frillies so's Herculano could swing her around his head. My land! that man has jaw-power to whip Teddy Roosevelt, and she's got vim enough for a nest of rattlesnakes.... Used up, Pat? ... If you aren't, you look it!" The speaker yawned prettily: "I'm about ready to be taken back to by-by, though it's only two o'clock."
Von Herrnung escorted the wearer of the green bird of paradise as they went through dark alleys and illuminated avenues back to the archway with the blazing crowns and stars. Courtley accepted the offer of a lift back to the hotel. The German declined, saying that he preferred to walk, as the car was closed.