EXCITEMENT ENOUGH
It had seemed to Belinda Melnotte as though she were only marking time during these retrograde movements of the French forces and the advance of the German line. But to Frank Sanderson every hour had been filled with excitement.
Not so full that he had not thought of her. Whatever may have been the obstacle in the young aviator's life that caused Belinda pain and mortification of spirit because of her own weakness, Frank did not allow any impediment to balk his tender thoughts of the Red Cross nurse.
She was ever in his mind, especially as his work during these terrible days brought him into such deadly and almost hourly peril. As he had uttered Belinda's name when his Nieuport was dashed earthward on the first day of this battle that still raged between the armies, so thought of her was present with him all the time. It seemed to the young man as though her spirit hovered about him as he soared upward in his aeroplane to hang over the line of battle. He felt that she must be thinking of him!
Despite her seeming coldness when he had walked from the town to old Minerva's cottage the night before the battle, he believed that Belinda Melnotte felt more interest in him than for some reason she was willing to betray.
He remembered those pregnant moments aboard the Belle o' Perth when the submarine had been about to attack. A girl surely would not "make believe" at such a time!
It was true Frank Sanderson's interest in women and his knowledge of them was limited; but he was sure he knew Belinda Melnotte's nature. Hers was too sturdy and direct a character to be merely coquettish.
"And great heavens!" cried the aviator, "what kind of girl could she be to flirt at such a time as that? We expected to be blown up by that submarine. No. She gave me a little glimpse of her real feelings then. She actually warmed toward me. And that time in Paris, too—in the little café. We were real friends then. But now! now, she seems utterly cold!
"Can it be, after all, that the black-looking doctor has some hold upon her? Some engagement made when she was too young to realize what she was doing—or, at least, one that she now regrets? Does he stand between us?"
The thought disturbed him vastly. Yet he could not allow such meditations to get between him and his work. The flying game is too exacting for the pilot of a battleplane to allow his attention to be divided.