took my two best ones."

"You gave me my choice, didn't you?"

"Yes, and I was a silly to do it. I might have known you'd take the best
ones"--hotly.

"But you had letters from him. You say yourself he never wrote to you
like that. It's _me_ he's writing to, not you."

"Well, of all the conceited things!" cried Agnes.

"I'm glad I am. I'll give you Edouard back, if you're going to make such
a row."

"I don't want him."

"All right, that settles it. It wouldn't be fair to Jean to give him
back to you."

"Fair! Lots you care about fair."

"Do you think it's fair to pass a soldier of France--one of our
allies--back and forth between mothers, like a bean-bag?"

"I have nothing more to say. I have found you out, Isabelle Bryce. I
give to you generously, and you prove a false friend."

Agnes walked away with her face flushed and her head high. It was too
bad to be treated like this when you were doing your patriotic duty. She
brooded on the matter for several days, avoiding her false friend, and
then an idea of revenge took possession of her.

Chance played into her hands at the moment, by putting into her lap a
copy of a fashionable magazine. It had two pages of pictures of the
idlers at Bermuda. An enlarged snapshot of Isabelle coming out of the
sea, was featured with a brief biographic sketch of her meteoric career
as actress, of her family, and her wealth. Agnes cut this out, enclosing
it with an anonymous letter to Petard. She told of the miserable trick
played upon him. Isabelle was only seventeen and a half, and in no way
fit to be a god-mother to him. She was infatuated with him, and
pretended to be old, so she would have an excuse to write him.

This malicious mischief mailed and headed for France, Agnes felt better,
and awaited results. She would make up with Isabelle in time to hear
what Jean Jacques Petard would say now. She hoped he would denounce her
as a traitor!

So far as Isabelle was concerned, Agnes and her injured feelings were of
no moment. It was a trifle awkward when Percy and Jack arranged a
foursome, but by strict formality of intercourse, they managed the
situation. The boys were soon aware of it, and found much amusement in
urging the combatants to battle. Percy tried to pump Agnes as to the
cause of the rupture, but nothing could unseal her lips on the secret.
She could imagine what those boys would do if they knew the truth. So
poor Agnes suffered in silence, nursed her secret t