not!” replied Patty, promptly, but Nan said, “Why, yes, Phil, stay. I’ll entertain you, if Patty won’t.”

“Thank you, Ma’am. That would suit me all right.”

“And how about your aviation training? When do you begin that?”

“It’s uncertain. I did expect to start for Wilmington next week, but matters are delayed by a screw loose in some of the red tape, and it may be a couple of weeks before I start.”

“What? I didn’t know you thought of going,” put in Patty, surprised.

“Yes, I’ve settled the preliminaries and I’m waiting further orders.”

“Going to Wilmington? Why, we won’t see you any more, then.”

“You don’t seem terribly upset over that! But, you will see me, I’m afraid. Wilmington is not so very far off, and the course is neither long nor strenuous. Why, it only takes about four months in all.”

“And then will you really fly? Up in the air, in big machines?”

“Such is my firm belief, Mademoiselle.”

“And will you fall and break your neck? They say they all do.”

“I’ll not promise to do that, unless you insist upon it. And it isn’t done as much as formerly, I believe.”

“Why are you two sparring so?” asked Nan, laughingly. “Aren’t you good friends, at the moment?”

“As good as anybody can be, when the lady he admires has been and went and gone and engaged herself to somebody else,” and Philip frowned darkly.

“Oho, so that’s it! Well, our young friend here is certainly engaged to her big Western suitor. Now, shall I look out for a sweet little girl for you?”

“No, thank you, Ma’am, it’s a case of Patty or nobody, where I’m concerned. But the game’s never out till it’s played out. Patty and Farnsworth may one or both of them yet change their minds.”

“You wouldn’t think so, if you saw them together,” laughed Nan. “They’re just about the most engagedest pair you ever saw!”

“Oh, come now,” said Patty, “we don’t show our affection in public, Nan!”

“Well, you have great difficulty not to do so. It’s all you 

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