"Do you know what I am going to do?" Peter demanded gloomily when he
found Rebecca Mary in the pergola overlooking the river at the foot of
the garden.
Rebecca Mary was reading a book which she had found in one of the big
cases in Joshua Cabot's grandfather's library. She flushed guiltily when
Peter discovered her and put her book hurriedly behind her, which was no
way to hide it from him. Peter immediately wanted to know what was the
matter with her book that she should put it behind her back when he came
in sight, and what was her book, anyway? A minute later Rebecca Mary had
yielded to brute force, and Peter read the title of the thick
volume--"The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg," and then he took up a small
volume which was on the bench beside Rebecca Mary and read the title of
that--"French Grammar."
Then and there Peter had taxed her with giving more of her time and
thoughts to Frederick William Gaston Johan Louis, Count Ernach de
Befort, than she did to him, plain Peter Simmons, a former private in
the Lafayette escadrille.
"You are always talking education with him. Education!" he sneered. "Or
reading about his blamed little country or studying his blamed,--no, I
can't call the language of the French names. But you know, Rebecca Mary,
that you give him more of your company than you give me." And when
Rebecca Mary just sat there flushed and guilty, Peter went on with great
determination, "Do you know what I am going to do?"
Rebecca Mary could truthfully say that she didn't, she hadn't the
faintest idea what he was going to do.
"I'm going to take this many-named count out and drown him. Oh, yes, I
know we're forbidden to go on the river and that Befort is needed at the
shop, but I'm going to drown him just the same. Yes, Rebecca Mary Wyman,
that is what I shall do, I'll take him out on the river and drown him.
What does he mean by butting in, anyway? Doesn't he know that I brought
you here to get you away from old Dick Cabot?"
"Oh!" Rebecca Mary was all in a flutter when he spoke of old Dick Cabot.
"Doesn't Befort know that you are my girl?" went on Peter with a frown,
although there was a grin lurking around the corners of his mouth.
"Am I?" dimpled Rebecca Mary, pink to her hair to hear that she was
Peter's girl.
"Aren't you?" Peter could answer one question with another as well as
any Irishman, and he leaned closer to see if Rebecca Mary agreed that
she was his girl. "And I'm not going to let another fellow cut me out,"
he went on sternly. "Marshall and Barton are bad enough, but I can
manage them."
"How?" interrupted Rebecca Mary, eager to hear how Peter was going to
manage Wallie Marshall and George Barton.
"I'm a bigger man than they are and a better," Peter explained promptly.
"They don't worry me, but this Befort--I'm bigger than he is, too, but
he's romantic, and all girls fall for romance. I can see that he might
have quite a drag with you. Most girls would rather have a diamond
already cut and polished in their platinum ring than one in the rough. I
like old Befort myself, but I'll have to drown him just the same.
Godfrey!" he jumped to his feet and looked down at her. "There's no time
like the present. I'll hunt him up and ask him politely to come for a
little row on the river, and then I'll drown him."
Rebecca Mary laughed. "There used to be an old saying that ran something
like this--'First catch your hare.'" Her eyes danced. It was such fun to
hear Peter run on. Not one of the eight-year-old men she had known in
the third grade of the Lincoln school had ever talked to her like this.
Peter grunted scornfully. "Oh, I'll catch him," he promised confidently.
"I have only to stay here with you, and I'll catch him and drown him."
Neither of them knew that just behind the vine wreathed pergola Joan was
playing with the farmhouse kitten which she had borrowed without
permission. She had hesitated between the baby asleep in a chair on the
porch and the kitten asleep on the step and then had wisely chosen the
kitten.
When she first heard Peter talking to Rebecca Mary she had not listened
to him for the kitten was so cunning as it played with the string Joan
held just out of reach of the four paws, but when Peter kept on
insisting that he was going to drown some one she had to listen. When
she heard who Peter was going to drown she jumped to her feet, almost on
the borrowed kitten, and gasped. Her first impulse was to rush to Peter
and tell him that he couldn't, he just couldn't, drown her father for
liking to talk to Rebecca Mary. If he did that he would have to drown
himself and every one at Riverside and a lot of people at Waloo, for
almost every one liked to talk to Rebecca Mary. He even would have to
drown her. And then another plan slipped swiftly into her startled
brain, and her slim legs scarcely touched the ground as they carried her
around the pergola and up through the garden.
It was the greatest luck that just as she passed the tall clump of
larkspur she should see her father coming leisurely toward her. If Joan
had been older and in less haste she would have seen that her father had
changed since the day the tennis ball had found him. He did not look as
haggard nor quite as absent-minded and his shoulders did not sag. He
looked just then as if he had come from the hands of a very good valet.
"Eh, Joan," he called when he saw the flash of her bare knees. "What
now? Where are you going in such haste?"
Joan threw herself against him, clasping his legs in her arms, and
gasped, "You won't let him drown you, will you?" she begged.
Frederick Befort dropped on the grass beside her and took her in his
arms. "Indeed, no one shall drown me, _ma petite_. Why should they?"
"Then when he asks you to come for a row on the river you won't go,
will you?" Joan went on. "Say you won't?" She gave him a little shake.
"I--I don't want you to be drowned."
"And I don't want to be drowned." Frederick Befort laughed gently as he
wiped the tears from her eyes. "Some one has been teasing you,
_mignonne_."
"It wasn't to me he said it. It was to Miss Wyman. He said he could
manage Mr. Marshall and Mr. Barton, but that you were too romantic and
he would have to drown you."
To Joan's surprise her father threw back his head and laughed and
laughed. "So," he murmured as he hugged her, "I am romantic, am I? Miss
Wyman----" An odd expression crossed his face as if an odd thought had
just crossed his mind. "You like Miss Wyman, don't you, Joan?"
Joan nodded as she clung to his hand. If Peter drowned her father he
should drown her, too. Even if she did love Miss Wyman she did not want
to live without her father.
"He said you were a cut and polished diamond set in platinum," she
hiccoughed. "And he said he was in the rough. That was why he would have
to take you in a boat and drown you, because you were a cut and polished
diamond. So I ran just as fast as I could for I knew if I told you he
never could drown you, could he?"
Frederick Befort put his fingers under the eager little face and tipped
it up so that he could kiss the trembling lips. "I don't think Peter
wants to drown me, Joan," he explained gently. "He was speaking
figuratively."
"What's that?" The new word had to be explained at once. "What's figure
speaking?"
Frederick Befort searched his brain for the right words with which to
explain it. "When you ran races with Miss Wyman and Peter last night you
called out that you were flying because you ran so fast. But you really
weren't flying, you know, you just felt as if you were. Peter Simmons
doesn't really want to drown me, he just wants to pretend that he does."
"Oh!" The explanation proved satisfactory, and Joan's lips stopped
trembling to smile. "It won't hurt to do it that way, will it?"
Frederick Befort smiled ruefully. "I'm not so sure. You know, Joan, that
Peter Simmons is young and life is all before him. My life is behind me,
the best part of it." He jumped to his feet as Rebecca Mary and Peter
rounded the larkspur. Peter was carrying the "Grand Duchy of
Luxembourg" and the French grammar.
Joan jumped to her feet, too. "I heard what you said," she called
triumphantly, "and I ran to tell my father. Yes, I did, and so you can't
drown him now only in your mind."
Peter looked surprised and crestfallen before he laughed. "You saved his
life," he said, tickling Joan's neck. "If you hadn't told him I'd take
him right out now and drown him."
Joan shivered and looked quickly from Peter to her "cut and polished"
father, who didn't shiver at all.
"Only figuratively, _mignonne_," he reminded her.
"But he could do it truly, perhaps," she said tremulously, for Peter did
seem so big and resourceful. "He has a war cross for being brave, you
know."
"He received that for saving people, not for drowning them," Frederick
Befort said swiftly. "I envy you that, Peter," he added gravely.
Peter nodded. "I hadn't thought of it like that. It is good to think
that I helped save, but when you get down to brass tacks that's what all
the fellows were doing," he went on quickly. "They saved the world,
ideals, freedom, everything that makes life worth while."
"Yes, you are right. Have you been studying your lesson, Miss Wyman?"
Frederick Befort took the French grammar from Peter's hand. "Are you
ready to recite it? Let us go down by the river."
And before Peter could say "booh" he had taken Rebecca Mary and the
grammar both away from him.
Peter looked after them and his jaw dropped. "Well, I'll be darned!" he
muttered "You bet I'll have to drown that man."