"So here he is at last, then, this Death," I said to myself. "Well, let us see what he will do!"
And in that instant the graceful biplane crashed into splinters, and I lay pinned in the wreckage beneath a shroud of torn white canvas. In the black casquette, later, they discovered a hole two inches wide, torn by the jagged edge of a broken stay.
I found them at my bedside when I awoke some days later, my Mademoiselle Warren and Monsieur Power. They leaned together, arm in arm, upon the rail at the foot, and the lovely face of my dear pupil was radiant with sympathy and happiness.
"Ha! What is it that it is, then?" I demand.
"Mr. Power won," said Miss Warren.
The young broker smiled with all his teeth.
"But he was unfairly abetted by a certain Monsieur Lacroix," went on Miss Warren. "That was a terrible practical joke you played on me with the black casquette, you know. They carried us away in the same auto, and they tell me that I looked as lifeless as you."
"And now I have lost my pupil!" I exclaimed ruefully.
"Dear Monsieur Lacroix, I had no choice," she responded, and moved to the bedside and held my hand. "I cannot oppose the wishes of all the people I love. Besides, it is a fair bargain. We have promised each other, Mr. Power and I, never to fly again."
"It is in one way a pity," I murmured. "For monsieur is without doubt a species of born birdman. But any one would make a parallel renunciation to stand in his shoes."