The Cricket Part 59

She started back and looked up at him.

"You! You!" she cried. "Oh! But I thought you were----"

"Not Percy!" he exploded.

But she ran away fast, through the garden, and he heard her laughter.

This was the memory that Isabelle carried with her on the way home. It was sweet and warm. She was content with it for a while.

Wally met them at the pier. It was plain that he was excited. After hasty greetings, he turned to his daughter.

"Who in thunder is this Frenchman you're engaged to?"

"What?" she demanded, startled.

"Jean Jacques Petard visits me; Jean Jacques Petard patrols our house; Jean Jacques Petard shadows your mother----"

"But I--but he isn't----"

"None of your tricks!" ordered Wally. "What we want to know is who is this Jean Jacques Petard, who demands your hand in marriage?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

On the way home from the pier Isabelle demanded explanations about the Frenchman, but Wally refused to talk.

"Your mother has something to say on the subject. Wait until we get home."

She and Miss Watts were summoned before the bar of judgment as soon as they reached the house. Max met them in the library and after a perfunctory greeting opened fire.

"Miss Watts, what does this mean?"

"I am sorry, Mrs. Bryce, but I must ask you to be more explicit."

"Explicit? I send my daughter away in your charge and you bring her back engaged to some unknown poilu. Then you ask me to be explicit!"

"But I know nothing of this affair, Mrs. Bryce. It is as much a surprise to me as it is to you."

Mrs. Bryce turned an exasperated look to the girl.

"It's true," said Isabelle, "she doesn't know anything about it."

"But how could you get engaged to him without her knowing it? She could see him around, couldn't she?"

"But he wasn't around. We met no Frenchman in Bermuda," protested Miss Watts, utterly at sea.

"Will you kindly explain this mystery?" inquired Mrs. Bryce, hotly.

"Yes, if you'll keep your temper and let me. In the first place, I'm not engaged to him."

"He says you are practically engaged and that you love him," contributed Wally.

"But I've never seen him."

"What?"--in chorus from both parents.

"It's true."

"You'd better have a look at him," said Wally, going, to the window.

Isabelle followed him hastily. A man in French uniform gazed up at the windows.

"_Is_ that Jean Jacques?" inquired Isabelle with interest. "He isn't bad looking, is he?"

"He patrols the block day and night. But get ahead with the plot. What hold has he got on you?"

"None," said she, promptly. "I merely adopted him as my son."

"Are you crazy?" inquired her mother.

Even Miss Watts looked alarmed.

"No, I'm a patriot. Down at Bermuda I met a girl I knew at school, Agnes Pollock. She told me about being patriotic, and how she wrote cheerful letters to soldiers in the trenches. So I borrowed two from her, Jean and Edouard. I wrote them nice motherly letters, about keeping their feet dry----"

Wally burst into laughter, but Mrs. Bryce hushed him with a violent gesture.

"They called me '_Ma chere marraine_,' and wrote long letters back. It was splendid practice for my French," she added.

"But this man wouldn't be wanting to marry his '_chere marraine_',"

challenged Mrs. Bryce.

"No. He wrote rather warm letters from the first, but Agnes and I decided that he had a warm, appreciative nature."

"Little fools! Then what?"

"I wrote a very cooling letter, but it didn't work. He was worse than ever; he said he knew I was beautiful and young; that he loved me madly--wanted to ask Wally for my hand in marriage, and a lot of stuff like that."

"And you accepted him?--this man you've never seen?"

"Of course I didn't accept him. I told him that I was old; that I didn't love him; that Wally was dead, so he couldn't address him; and that that was my last letter."

Again Wally laughed.

"But Isabelle, why didn't you tell me something of all this?" begged Miss Watts.