The next morning at a few minutes before eleven, Nike brought her out of a lower-sky near the New Jersey town and a few minutes later, Mrs. Pollzoff drove up in her own car. Roberta noticed that its fender had been bent, and when the woman alighted, she stopped a moment to speak to the chauffeur about having repairs made. He listened respectfully, then transferred her luggage to the waiting Nike, where he assisted in storing it safely.
While these final preparations were going on, Roberta heard a plane flying so low that she glanced up to see if the machine was coming down with its engine running, but she decided that the pilot must have had some difficulty in the take-off. He was climbing rather slowly, and she wondered if he was an inexperienced amateur in trouble or showing off to admiring friends who might be watching him.
“Is that all, Madame?” the chauffeur asked.
“Yes, thank you, that is all. We are quite properly packed, I think, Miss Langwell, but you had better make sure.” Roberta glanced at the tiny baggage compartment, which was certainly well filled, and nodded. “Then we can start as soon as you are ready.”
“I am ready now,” Roberta told her. Mrs. Pollzoff took her place, adjusted straps and chute, nodded to the chauffeur, who was already back in the battered limousine, then glanced at the sky.
“Go south, toward Florida, about twelve miles out. The weather looks a little doubtful, we may as well have the cover over our heads,” she said.
“All right.” Roberta slid the top into place and made it secure, then assuring herself that she could start without cutting anyone in two with the propeller, she opened the throttle. The engine roared, Nike moved forward swiftly, lifted thirty feet further along, then rose majestically into the air. They zoomed, circled in wide loops, ascending in spirals, and at five thousand feet, leveled off. Roberta set the plane’s nose toward the Atlantic, for she knew that her passenger preferred to travel above the water rather than the land. Ten minutes later the shore line was almost completely hidden by the haze which was lowering over the coast. Straight east they flew, only once seeing another plane. It was a small one which came alongside in a friendly fashion, but the distance was too great for the girl to see who was at the controls. Nike was twenty miles out when Mrs. Pollzoff indicated that she wanted to turn south, and in a moment that was accomplished. The sky did not look as threatening as it had from the shore and Roberta hoped that if a storm was brewing, she was going to get away from it.