She added aloud, looking into the pink and puggy face that had outstared Danger and was now staring at Bankruptcy, "Take care of it, won't you? You won't throw it away or let it get lost or anything?" "Not for all the Eau in Cologne!" Mr. Brown assured her with a mock-flourish as they ran up the piazza steps together. Those robin-like eyes of Captain Ross were fixed very watchfuly upon this young Mr. Brown as he appeared, laughing and chatting as if he were quite old friends with the Professor's niece. Then the young Staff officer looked from him to her. For a girl who wasn't bland, she was (he thought again) quite neat.... The chit didn't look at him.... And what (Captain Ross wondered) was that keep-sake that she was handing to that fellow? CHAPTER VIII THE FIRST ENGAGEMENT BY THE CHARM "Artill. 38 ans, célib., sér., demande marraine affect, désinteressée." La Vie Parisienne. Astonishment, incredulity, excitement and delight, reigned in the hotel at Les Pins. One thought only pervaded the place, from the topmost attics inhabited by Marie the Bretonne and the other _femmes-de-chambre_, down through the other floors to the wide _salons_ and to the shut-off wing that was the domain of the management. One topic alone set all tongues there chattering, in English, French, or Canadian-Scots. One piece of news was now being discussed before any _communiqué_ from any of the fronts. It was the news about Miss Agatha Walsh and the nephew of "the management," Sergeant Tronchet. They were engaged to be married. This was sudden, as everybody commented one after another. This was quick work. For, how long had Miss Walsh been staying at the hotel? Two--three days? And had she ever met this man before? Never? One moonlight walk in the pine-forest, one expedition by motor-boat across the lagoon, half a dozen conversations at table d'hôte, an encounter at the post office where Miss Walsh had gone to buy picture postcards of the Côte d'Azur, another stroll in the forest, a game of draughts together--this had been all the preparation necessary for a declaration from the bull-necked, swarthy French sergeant to the English lady-all-alone. The deed was done. He had asked her to become his wife. She had accepted him. No; there was no mistake. The pair were going about looking as if they were newly-elected king and queen of the Gironde, and those visitors to whom the engagement had not been announced in French by Sergeant Tronchet, had been told in English by the radiant, tremulous, blissful Miss Walsh herself.