Marion raised one exquisite eyebrow and regarded him with the collected gaze of a woman who had graduated with the first class at Stanford Law School and worked in banking before flourishing in the new trade of moving pictures. She said, “I understand that Orville and Wilbur Wright learned the same way. Of course, they were busy inventing the aeroplane.”

“I had the advantage of advice from seasoned aviators . . . You are regarding me with a strange look.”

“Your eyes are as bright as I’ve ever seen them, and you’re grinning ear to ear. You look like you’re still flying.”

Isaac Bell laughed. “I suppose I am. I suppose I always will be. Though what you’re seeing at the moment is also the effect of being so very happy to see you.”

“I am overjoyed to see you, too, my dear, and glad of a ‘love effect.’ It’s been too long.” She stood up from her chair.

“What are you doing?”

“I am standing up to kiss you again.”

Bell kissed her back until she said, “The house detective will be coming over to ask what we’re doing in public.”

“No worry there,” said Bell. “The Garden City Hotel just signed a contract with Van Dorn Protective Services. Our man took over house detective duties this very morning.”

“So,” she said, sitting back down, “tell me about the bump on your noggin. And this ‘ground effect.’”

“Ground effect prevents you from alighting when a cushion of air develops between your wings and the ground. Air turns out to be strong—stronger than you’d imagine. Essentially, the machine does not want to stop flying, and you have to somehow persuade it—like when a horse takes the bit in its teeth.”

“A flying horse,” Marion remarked.

“Apparently the effect is strongest on a monoplane because—”

“You must tell me,” Marion interrupted, “what did you see when you were up there?”

“Speed looks different in the air. The land didn’t appear to blur as it does beside a train or my Locomobile. It seemed to flow under me, more slowly the higher I went.”

“How high did you go?”

“High enough to see the Hudson River. When I saw it, I knew I had to fly to it.”

Marion’s beautiful eyes widened. “You flew all the way to the Hudson River?”

Bell laughed. “It seemed safer than flying over the ocean—I could see that, too.”

Marion marveled, “At the same time you saw the Hudson River, you saw the Atlantic Ocean? Then surely you saw the skyscrapers of New York.”

“Like spikes in the smoke.”

“You must take me up to shoot moving pictures.”

“You will love it,” Bell answered. “I saw a giant sturgeon swimming on the bottom of the river.”

“When are we going?” she asked as excitement rose in her voice.

“Well, umm, flying is perfectly safe, of course. But not yet safe with me.”