Encouraged by love, Little worked hard upon his new flying-machine. His
labors were lightened by talking of the beloved one with her French
maid Therese, whom he had discreetly bribed. Mademoiselle Therese was
venal, like all her class, but in this instance I fear she was not
bribed by British gold. Strange as it may seem to the British mind, it
was British genius, British eloquence, British thought, that brought
her to the feet of this young savan.
"I believe," said Lady Caroline, one day, interrupting her maid in a
glowing eulogium upon the skill of "M. Leetell,"--"I believe you are in
love with this Professor." A quick flush crossed the olive cheek of
Therese, which Lady Caroline afterward remembered.
The eventful day of trial came. The public were gathered, impatient
and scornful as the pigheaded public are apt to be. In the open area a
long cylindrical balloon, in shape like a Bologna sausage, swayed above
the machine, from which, like some enormous bird caught in a net, it
tried to free itself. A heavy rope held it fast to the ground.
Little was waiting for the ballast, when his eye caught Lady Caroline's
among the spectators. The glance was appealing. In a moment he was at
her side.
"I should like so much to get into the machine," said the
arch-hypocrite, demurely.
"Are you engaged to marry young Raby," said Little, bluntly.
"As you please," she said with a courtesy; "do I take this as a
refusal?"
Little was a gentleman. He lifted her and her lapdog into the car.
"How nice! it won't go off?"
"No, the rope is strong, and the ballast is not yet in."
A report like a pistol, a cry from the spectators, a thousand hands
stretched to grasp the parted rope, and the balloon darted upward.
Only one hand of that thousand caught the rope,--Little's! But in the
same instant the horror-stricken spectators saw him whirled from his
feet and borne upward, still clinging to the rope, into space.