She considered herself a cultured woman, yet she had not spoken one grateful word to the man who had rescued Gwen from her perilous position!
Of course Max denied that he had intended to play a trick on Gwen. He was a coward, and a coward rarely cares to "own up" when guilty.
Instead, he insisted that he only "dared" her to get into the tub, but that he never thought she would stay in it a moment after he was out of sight.
His mother believed him; the guests did not, but little cared Max. So long as she thought him perfect, he was quite happy, because he could do, at all times, exactly as he chose. That he usually chose to be very disagreeable was not to be wondered at.
His mother thought his pranks most amusing, and his saucy speeches, smart, so he was quite content.
The oddest part of all was that Gwen really liked Max Deland. He was always getting her into scrapes, and as soon as she had escaped from one, she was ready for another.
Max never helped her. Instead, he left her to help herself. Gwen was wilful with all of her girl playmates, but she would agree to anything that Max proposed, so when, in the afternoon of the following day, he told her that he was going to take a long tramp, Gwen was wild to know just where he was going, and coaxed to go too.
"Where are you going?" she asked for the third time.
"Oh, somewhere great!" Max said with a provoking chuckle.
"It would serve you just right if I said I didn't care where you went, but I do care, because I want to go too," Gwen said.