d there was none, even of the man's-hand size
so often discerned as a portent.

When the storm broke (this must be hurriedly passed over because of the
let's-not-talk-about-the-war-I'm-so-sick-of-it-aren't-you feeling) Giddy
promptly went into the Lafayette Escadrille. Later he learned never to
mention this to an American because the American was so likely to say,
"There must have been about eleven million scrappers in that outfit.
Every fella you meet's been in the Lafayette Escadrille. If all the guys
were in it that say they were they could have licked the Germans the
first day out. That outfit's worse than the old Floradora Sextette."

Mrs. Gory was tremendously proud of him, and not as worried as she
should have been. She thought it all a rather smart game, and not at all
serious. She wasn't even properly alarmed about her European money, at
first. Giddy looked thrillingly distinguished and handsome in his
aviation uniform. When she walked in the Paris streets with him she
glowed like a girl with her lover. But after the first six months of it
Mrs. Gory, grown rather drawn and haggard, didn't think the whole affair
quite so delightful. She scarcely ever saw Giddy. She never heard the
drum of an airplane without getting a sick, gone feeling at the pit of
her stomach. She knew, now, that there was more to the air service than
a becoming uniform. She was doing some war work herself in an
incompetent, frenzied sort of way. With Giddy soaring high and her
foreign stocks and bonds falling low she might well be excused for the
panic that shook her from the time she opened her eyes in the morning
until she tardily closed them at night.

"Let's go home, Giddy darling," like a scared child.

"Where's that?"

"Don't be cruel. America's the only safe place now."

"Too darned safe!" This was 1915.

By 1917 she was actually in need of money. But Giddy did not know much
about this because Giddy had, roughly speaking, got his. He had the
habit of soaring up into the sunset and sitting around in a large pink
cloud like a kid bouncing on a feather bed. Then, one day, he soared
higher and farther than he knew, having, perhaps, grown careless through
over-confidence. He heard nothing above the roar of his own engine, and
the two planes were upon him almost before he knew it. They were not
French, or English, or American planes. He got one of them and would
have got clean away if the other had not caught him in the arm. The
rig