Page:The Zeppelin Destroyer.djvu/19

 Roseye Lethmere certainly possessed a character that was all her own.

In her ordinary costume, as a London girl, she was inexpressibly dainty and extremely well dressed. Her curiously soft blue eyes, almost child-like in their purity of expression, were admired everywhere. Whenever, however, her picture appeared in the papers it was always in her flying costume.

Most women, when they take up any outdoor exercise, be it hunting, golfing, strenuous tennis, or sport of any kind, usually acquire a certain indescribable hardness of feature, a sign by which, when they sit in the stalls of a theatre, the mere man at once knows them.

But the beauty of Miss Rosie—as she was known at Hendon—in spite of her many exciting and perilous exploits in the air, was still soft and sweet, as it should be with any fresh healthy girl of twenty-two.

The workmen started hammering again, fitting a new propeller to a machine in course of hurried completion for the front, so we all three went outside, where our own machines stood close together.

Theed, my mechanic—who had been the governor's chauffeur before I took up flying—was busily testing my engine, and I could hear it missing a little.

'Hulloa!' I cried, looking up at a big monoplane at that moment passing over us. 'Why, Eastwell's up in Thorold's new bus!'

'Yes,' answered Roseye. 'I passed quite close to him behind St Albans.'

The October morning was bright and sunny, with a blue, cloudless sky, just the morning for trial flights and stunts, and, in consequence, two pupils