All was quiet for several days. Then Isabel met Helen Paget in the corridor one morning and whispered, “I’m ready to be offered up again,—two acts at once this time!” She burst into No. 52, where Hilary was in the midst of a theorem, with, “Where’s Cathalina? I’ve got to see her!”
“I think that she took her books down to the rocks. She said that Childe Harold’s address to the ocean would sound better down there.”
“What’s she reading that for?”
“Collateral in Lit.”
“My, does she take that,”—and Isabel was gone.
Five minutes later a flying figure reached and scrambled over the rocks to a high point where Cathalina was sitting and gazing dreamily out over the lake. Her bright hair was blowing about in a fresh lake breeze, her grey-blue sweater buttoned tightly around her. Once arrived, Isabel was in no hurry to explain her object and stood like a rosy bird, balancing on a rock, her hands in the pocket of her sweater, which was red. “Cooler, isn’t it?” she remarked.
Now Cathalina had not fancied Isabel very much. Isabel’s slangy speech and pert ways did not attract her, though she tried to be friendly to the little girl. To tell the truth, Cathalina’s inclinations were not of the sort that admitted readily a number of girls to intimacy. That fact was of course a protection to her, but also kept off for a time at least, some of the girls who were worth knowing. Hilary at this time had the better attitude for girls’ school,—helpful, kind and pleasant to every one, yet independent, fearless on matters of right and wrong, and confiding her private affairs chiefly to that best of confidents, her mother.
“Will you save my life, Cathalina?” asked Isabel brightly, as she sat down on a convenient rock at Cathalina’s feet. She secretly admired Cathalina very much and wished that she could be like her. She also felt Cathalina’s disapproval of her rough ways, but from some spirit of perverseness, was moved to be a little worse than usual when in Cathalina’s presence. This afternoon, however, a different spirit established itself. Isabel’s artistic eye and spiritual sense were touched by something “angelic”, as she called it, about Cathalina’s serious face and dreamy expression, while Cathalina thought that she had never known Isabel so sensible and sweet.
“How can I ‘save your life,’ Isabel?” asked Cathalina at last, remembering Isabel’s greeting which had been forgotten in the talk which followed.
Mischief came back into Isabel’s eyes. “You are not taking German are you?”