This room was no servants’ quarters. It had evidently been one of the regular guest rooms, for everything in it was beautiful.

She went into the rose-draped bedroom and looked around in delight. She flung open a door that she thought must be a closet and a light sprang forth, revealing a room as large as Aunt Hannah’s bedroom in Rayport. Rods and hangers and shelves! Shoe trees and hat trees galore! Surely the maid had made a dreadful mistake and put her in the wrong room. Perhaps she ought to do something about it.

She hung up her small dark hat on a hand-painted dolly. She hung up her limp little georgette coat in which she had journeyed on a pink satin hanger finished in rosebuds. Then she went into the spacious white bathroom finished in rose and black borders, and washed her face and hands with a cake of soap that she had seen much advertised in the magazines but had never hoped to use because of its price. If this room was a mistake, at least she would have these few minutes of fun, playing it belonged to her.

When she had made her hair smooth and tidy and had hung up one or two things out of her suitcase that she was afraid might wrinkle, she went and sat down by the window in her green sitting room.

“This is my dressing room!” she said to herself, looking around with shining eyes. “What fun I’ll have writing to Aunt Hannah and Aunt Jocelyn about it!”

Then her eyes sought the lovely distance.

And all at once she saw something like a bird, or perhaps it was only a large insect sailing across the sky. Of course it was an airplane, but what fun to watch it from such a high place! She never had been where she could watch one so well. They were always high up overhead when they went over Rayport.

The insect became a bird, and the bird a great airplane at last, flashing its silver wings in the sunlight. She knelt by the windowsill and looked up at it. It seemed to be coming straight toward the house, and she could hear the throb of the engine now. Was that the flier looking down? It thrilled her to think she was so near to the great machine and to the man who dared to navigate the skies.

Then down below she heard voices, laughing, and a group of young people suddenly appeared on the terrace in light lovely dresses, sport frocks, and uniforms, things she had read about. They were looking up and calling, waving their hands. One girl took the long coral scarf from her head and waved it.

“That’s Teddy!” they called. “There he is! I knew he’d be on time!”

A white paper fluttered down as the plane circled away, and the girls ran screaming and laughing to catch it.

“It’s mine!” they called.

“No! It’s mine!”

“Better give it to Diana!” someone said, laughing. “She claims all that flies as her own!”

Amory drew back into the shadow of the curtain lest she be seen by the crowd below, but her eyes were on the great plane that was circling lower and lower now, and she realized with another thrill that it was going to land right there, and she was going to be able to see it.

The airstrip was not a quarter of a mile away, just beyond the garden, and the hedge was low there. Amory was far above the ground and felt that she had a front seat at the most exciting moment of her life.

Like a great silver moth it settled down, ran smoothly for a little space, and came to rest. She watched it in wonder, and presently a figure disengaged itself from the body of the machine and after walking about the creature and examining it here and there, started toward the garden gate.

As he came nearer, Amory could see that he wore an aviator’s uniform and that he had a handsome face, tanned to a lovely golden brown.

Striding through the garden gate as the group of young people ran laughing to meet him, he pulled off his helmet and swung it in his hand. Amory saw that he had golden brown hair, crisp and curly and short cut, and a strong, well-chiseled chin and nose. His eyes were very blue, and he raised them suddenly to her window, while the group of giddy girls below caught him and pulled him and pretended to try to kiss him. They were laughing eyes, and they looked straight into Amory’s with a laughing, astonished question in their blue depths.

“What does he see? What is he looking at?” cried the struggling girls as he warded them off, and they all looked up at Amory’s window, but Amory was not there. She had dropped suddenly to her knees, with her burning cheeks hidden in her hands.

Just then there came a knock at the door!

Chapter 2

It was only the maid with a tray, but Amory was trembling as if she were about to be brought to trial in a court of law. What on earth was the matter with her, she wondered, acting silly like this! Just because she had been caught looking out the window. She had a right to look out the window, didn’t she, even if she was only a hired servant?

She scrambled to her feet and met the question in the maid’s eye.

“I was watching an airplane land,” she explained confusedly.

“Oh, that’s Mr. Theodore,” explained the maid. “He’s just back from his Canada hop. They said he was coming, but his aunt didn’t seem to expect him very much. Now he’s come, things will happen fast.