The Cricket Part 64

sort, or a more impa.s.sioned style?"

"Oh, Larry, you must advise me! Which would you take?"

With a laugh--half amused, wholly tender--he took her into his arms.

"I'd take the quickest way to get ye, little wee leprechaun."

"Larry, I won't let you off. I do so _want_ to be proposed to."

"My dear," he said gently, "I love ye a very great deal. I want ye to love me a very great deal, and to be my wife."

Both arms went around his neck. She drew his tall head down to her, and kissed him.

"Thank you, Larry; I will," she said.

He gathered her up and went to sit in a chair big enough to hold them both. He kissed her eyes, her saucy chin, her hair. He told her in tender ways, known only to the Irish, how he loved her, how he wanted to make for her a s.h.i.+eld of his love, to keep her safe and happy.

"Do ye love me, Cricket?" he begged her.

"Larry," she said, solemnly; "I feel as if you were all the people I have loved in my whole life--Ann, Mrs. Benjamin, Jerry, and Herbert----"

"And Percy?" he teased her. "When did ye begin to love me?" he asked, in the old way of lovers.

"On the boat, going down."

"Ye didn't."

"I did."

"I felt it comin' on me, stronger and stronger, at Bermuda, but that night when ye came into my arms in the garden settled it. I had to come and find out who ye thought ye were lovin'."

She only laughed. Luncheon was announced and the family appeared. The meal was more or less the usual midday repast, but to Isabelle and Larry it might have been ambrosia, or sawdust. They made motions of eating, between long glances. Wally and Max tried not to notice, but Miss Watts's face was wreathed in a fatuous smile of satisfaction.

Later, when they went to the living room, she started to slip away, but Isabelle put her arm through the older woman's and led her along.

"We'll face this out together," she whispered.

"We seem to have had the end of this story, Isabelle; suppose we now have the first of it," said her mother in an amused tone.

The Captain and Isabelle smiled at each other.

"Will you recite it, or shall I?" he asked.

"Together."

"_Chapter One. The good s.h.i.+p 'Astra.' The hero forces his acquaintance upon the heroine . . ._" he began.

"Didn't you want to meet him?" inquired Max, curiously.

"Certainly, but I didn't want him to know it. All the women on board made fools of themselves about him."

"Deceivin' little minx! Is this the way ye brought her up, Mrs. Bryce?"

"I didn't bring her up. She's brought herself up. Go on with the story."

"_The hero curried favour with one Miss Watts in hope of advancing his suit . . ._"

"Miss Watts was foolish about him, too," announced Isabelle.

"I was," admitted Miss Watts.

"_The heroine promptly acquired one Major O'Dell, of the English army, one odious youth, named Percy, one nondescript yclept Jack----_"

"And an Irishman named O'Leary," boasted Isabelle.

"_And an Irishman named O'Leary. She led them all a pretty dance, and when her affairs were so complicated that a lawyer couldn't straighten them out, whist! she disappears._"

"Engaged to a Frenchman!" supplied Wally. "Catholic tastes, our Isabelle, a regular internationalist."

Larry looked at Wally as if seeing him for the first time, and laughed appreciatively.

"The Irishman followed," prompted Isabelle.

"_The Irishman followed. Now he wishes to apologize for the abrupt way in which he intruded into the peace conference. He makes the proper, if somewhat belated request, that Mr. and Mrs. Bryce will look upon him kindly as a son-in-law._"

His gay smile went swiftly from Max to Wally.

"Isabelle, has he proposed yet?" asked Max.

"Yes."

"Did you accept him?"

"Yes."

"I cannot believe that you could ever do anything so sensible."

"Thank you," bowed the Captain. "Mr. Bryce, the British consul has full information about me. I am a captain in the ---- Regiment. I am on sick leave, wounded at Ypres."

Wally put out his hand and grasped O'Leary's.

"I'll have a talk with the Consul this afternoon, but if Isabelle likes you as well as I do, your case is safe right now."

Isabelle fell upon Wally and hugged him. The next victim was Miss Watts.

"I know you'll be happy, my dear. You know how to take care of her, Captain O'Leary."