"Exactly. But I feared all manner of things when I first went up as a passenger," he pursued. "The pilot was so matter-of-fact that I thought him reckless. I was scarcely seated and my belt hooked when we were off. I heard the wheels bounding along the ground. Then the noise stopped—we were in the air."
"Oh!"
"Yes. I thought I should feel vertigo, as I often did when at an altitude. I dared not look out of the machine until we were perhaps five hundred feet up. Then, to my surprise, I felt not the least sensation of height. The ground seemed merely moving slowly under and away from me. We kept climbing. I could see the country for miles and miles."
"How wonderful!"
As the days passed and Sanderson grew stronger, there was less danger of his exhausting himself by talking. Nurse Melnotte was really having an easy time.
"A soft snap," little Sue Blaine declared enviously. "And such an interesting patient, too! You always do have all the luck, Belinda."
"Do you think so?" came, with her quiet smile.
"He's an awfully nice fellow. Believe me—I'd set my cap for him if I'd had the luck to be detailed on the case. Think! An aviator!"
"It's a very pretty cap—and on a very pretty head, dear," laughed Belinda.
If she felt any interest in Sanderson other than interest in the young man out of the air as a patient, she did not betray it to either her fellow nurses or to the patient himself. But if she was out of the young man's sight in the daytime, he missed her. Nor did he succeed in hiding his admiration from other eyes. One evening when she left him in Miss Trivett's care, the night nurse remarked his gaze fixed upon Belinda as she departed.