"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."