"Goodness! they know all about these French fellows. What are we to do?"
"Take no notice, Harry. Let them have their little excitement, dear things. A woman's life is so short. Bran said to me as we lay in bed this morning, 'Mammie, in 120 months, I 'll be fifteen; how old will you be?' And, my dear, I calculated and found it would bring me up to forty-two--and another 120 months to fifty-two, and then another, and life will be done! Have you ever thought of it, dear: that our lives are just a series of months in batches of 120?"
"You need not talk yet," sighed Harriott. "It's the last few batches that are so short. The years fly like greased lightning after forty."
"And the early ones seem so long and weary--until the first love adventure looms in sight. Ah! those first little adventures, how lovely they are! To realise that we are desirable ... that some one wants us ... finds us pretty and charming ... to feel the little wings of womanhood sprouting on our shoulder-blades! Oh, Harry, we mustn't grudge the enchantment of it to our girls! Don't you remember how delightful it was? Was anything that came after half so wonderful?"
"I know," said Harriott, the gentle light of reminiscence in her eye. "But this is a different matter, my dear. These are Frenchmen."
"But they are really very Irish-looking," laughed Val, who not being English never could understand the curious aversion that sits deep in almost every Englishwoman's heart for the male species across the Channel. "And those two kids are as happy and excited as larks in the wind. I 'm sure that kind of thing should never be suppressed, Harry."
"I dare say you are right, dear. Only we must make fun of them sometimes so that there shall be no danger of their taking it seriously. I think I 'd rather have Kitty take the veil than take a Frenchman."
That same evening as they all sat playing Bridge in the little wooden dining-room of Villa Duval, a whirr of bicycle wheels was heard without. Then a silence and the sound of some one walking softly over the glass and broken china with which the other side of the road was freely decorated. Under the table Haidee handed Kitty a hack on the shins, but their faces remained bland, their interest in the game unabated. It was a black night and to look out of the window availed nothing. A few moments later came the sound of bicycles in retreat. At bedtime the two girls stayed whispering and speculating long in Kitty's room, which overlooked the road, but the mystery of the bicycles was unexplained--until the next morning. Bran, standing on Val's bed, as was his pleasant custom when dressing, suddenly shouted--and a shout in Villa Duval could be heard through every room in the house.
"What's that red thing in my 'Jules Duval'?"
The Jules Duval, as has been explained, was pére Duval's old fishing boat, which had been fixed-up and painted to be the special joy and plaything of Bran. He adored boats and everything to do with the sea, and spent all his days in the Jules going imaginary voyages.