had heard, from my youth upwards, many disparaging remarks upon the follies and the unbalance of the mind of the gentler sex.
This, however, did not prevent me from loving Roseye Lethmere, daughter of Sir Herbert, who had come into my life quite unexpectedly a year ago.
As she stood there chatting with us, attired in her airwoman's clothes, her appearance was certainly workwomanlike. She was dressed in a wool-lined leather coat, and overall trousers, with a knitted Balaclava helmet, and over that again a leather skull-cap, the whole tied down tightly beneath the chin. A huge khaki woollen muffler was around her throat, while a pair of unsightly goggles hanging around her neck completed the picture. She had followed my advice, I noted, and tied her muffler very securely around her chin.
How very different she looked at that moment to when I took her—as I so frequently did—to a play, and afterwards to supper at the Carlton, the Savoy, or Ciro's. She was a girl who, on the outbreak of war, had decided to play her part in the national crisis, and she certainly had done so.
Three times had she flown across the Channel with me, and three times had we returned in safety to Hendon.
Indeed, only a week before, she had flown by herself on a British-built Duperdussin with 100 horse-power Anzani engines from Brooklands across to France, descending a mile outside Abbeville. She had had lunch at the old Tête de Bœuf hotel in that town, and returned, landing safely at Hendon—a feat that no woman had ever before accomplished.
