"Somebody I liked once called me 'the cricket'."
"That's it--Cricket--may I call ye that?"
"Now, Cricket, tell me all about yourself."
She looked at him intently for a moment. He lay stretched out on the sand, his elbow crooked to support his head. He looked frankly back at her.
And she did. She did not touch it up a bit. She made him see her life, her people, the Benjamins, her experience at Miss Vantine's--all--through the eyes of her youth, her wistful youth. She told him about Martin Christiansen; she even confessed the fearful catastrophe with Cartel; and she did not mind when he rolled on his back and sent gusts of laughter up to the clouds.
"O ye delicious, crickety Cricket!" he groaned. "Go on."
"There isn't any 'on'. That's up to now. Tell me about you."
And he did. He told her about his people, his young life near Dublin. How he went to an English University, how he enlisted in the war. He told her about his life in the trenches, about his wounds, about his decoration. He talked as he had talked to no one else about the whole experience of war.
She sat tense and still, concentrated on his every word. When he had finished, they sat in silence for several seconds.
Her tell-tale face registered her distress. He laid his hand over her little brown one.
"Not for a while. I shall often think of this place and this day," he said, gazing off over the sea. "Ye're a comfortable cricket, when ye want to be. I'd like to capture ye, to sing on my hearth!"
[Illustration: _"Ye're a comfortable cricket, when ye want to be. I'd like to capture ye, to sing on my hearth!"_]
"Well, I'm not ready to settle yet, so your hearth must go bare."
"Like Mother Hubbard's cupboard! Where are ye hoppin' off to?"
"I wonder what Percy's mother wanted with him," she evaded.
"I did, Cricket; I jumped a longer jump than you did," he boasted.
"Why, you old grasshopper!" she exploded.
Miss Watts found Isabelle more reasonable, more amenable than ever before in their association, and as she had made some pleasant acquaintances, she was thoroughly enjoying herself. She hoped their stay would be long. In her reports to the Bryces she conscientiously mentioned Isabelle's good behaviour and her improvement in health.