"Well, yesterday when I was down by the levee he was coming in and I knew that Mr. Creighton was here and I told him. So," she colored faintly, "then he took me across the bayou and I got some of those big swamp lilies that I've always wanted. And we had a long talk. Val, Jeems knows the most wonderful things about the swamps. Do you know that they still have voodoo meetings sometimes—way back in there," she swept her hand southward. "And the fur trappers live on house-boats, renting their hunting rights. But Jeems owns his own land. Now some northerners are prospecting for oil. They have a queer sort of car which can travel either on land or water. And Père Armand has church records that date back to the middle of the eighteenth century. And—"
"So that's where you were from four until almost six," Val laughed. "I don't know that I approve of this riotous living. Will Jeems take me to pick the lilies too?"
"Maybe. He wanted to know why you always moved so carefully. And I told him about the accident. Then he said the oddest thing—" She was staring past Val at the oaks. "He said that to fly was worth being smashed up for and that he envied you."
"Then he's a fool!" her brother said promptly. "Nothing is worth—" Val stopped abruptly. Five months before he had made a bargain with himself; he was not going to break it now.
"Do you know," Ricky said to Charity, "if you really need Jeems this morning, I think I can get him for you. He told me yesterday how to find his cabin."
"But why—" The objection came almost at once from Charity. Val thought she was more than a little surprised that Jeems, who had steadfastly refused to give her the same information, had supplied it so readily to Ricky whom he hardly knew at all.
"I don't know," answered Ricky frankly. "He was rather queer about it. Kept saying that the time might come when I would need help, and things like that."
"Charity," Val was putting her brushes straight, "I learned long ago that nothing can be kept from Ricky. Sooner or later one spills out his secrets."
"Except Rupert!" Ricky aired her old grievance.
"Perhaps Rupert," her brother agreed.