“Poor little fellow!” thought Philippe. “I can’t bear to tell him she is to be married. He is such a dare devil the chances are he will be killed before long and he may never have to know that his inamorata has chosen a better looking man, not a better man—they don’t make them to beat little Williams.”
As they approached the car, impulsive Judy jumped out and ran to meet her friend. Jo ran, too, and they embraced with such ardor that Philippe stood back amazed. Maybe Kent Brown was not to be so envied, after all. If the girl who was to marry him in a day was so lavish with her embraces for other men, what kind of wife would she make? Of course, Williams was a rather dried up person, but then a man’s a man for a’ that.
Kent, too, was rather astonished when his fiancée left him with such precipitation and before all the aviation camp hugged and kissed the strange bunchy little figure. Ardor for the heroes of France was all well enough, but a fellow’s sweetheart need not be quite so warm in her manner of showing her appreciation, especially when the fellow happens not to be one himself in the habit of making daily daring flights to spy out the weakness in the trenches of the enemy.
The Marquise laughed as she had not done since the first week in August of that terrible year. Kent looked at her in astonishment. She was not so very much like his mother, after all. His mother would not have been so much amused over the discomfiture of a young lover.
That matron was saying to herself: “How stupid men are!” She had recognized Jo from the beginning. Kent had known in some far off corner of his brain that Mrs. Polly Perkins was doing something or other about the war, but his mind had been so taken up with his own affairs and Judy’s possible danger that that knowledge had stayed in the corner of his brain while the more important matter of getting married was uppermost. Suddenly the truth flashed over him and he was overcome with laughter, too.
“Caught on, eh?” asked his cousin.
“We must keep mum,” she admonished. “There is no reason why a woman should not do her part this way if she can. I’d fly in a minute if that would help any. Of course these stupid men would raise a hue and cry if they knew a woman was carrying off the honours.”
“I am as quiet as the grave,” declared Kent.
Judy came to the car with her friend and with the utmost audacity introduced Jo as Mr. Williams. The Marquise greeted the supposed young man graciously. Kent sprang out and shook Jo warmly by the hand, much to the astonishment of his cousin Philippe.