She came swimming on her side, one strong brown arm cutting swiftly and steadily through the water. When presently she walked up on the beach, a pale smile glimmered over Elizabeth’s face, but it vanished at Olga’s glance as she passed with the scornful fling—“Haven’t even wet your feet—baby!”
Elizabeth’s face flushed and she drew her bare feet under her.
“Never mind, you’ll wet them to-morrow, won’t you, Elizabeth?” Laura said; but the Poor Thing made no reply; she only gulped down a sob as she looked after the straight young figure in the dripping bathing suit marching down the beach.
“She notices no one but Olga,” Laura said as she walked back to camp with her friend. “If Olga would only take an interest in her!”
“If only she would!” Anne agreed. “But she seems to have no more feeling than a fish!”
Many of the girls did their best to draw the Poor Thing out of her shell of scared silence, but they all failed. And Olga would do nothing. Yet Elizabeth followed Olga like her shadow day after day. Olga’s impatient rebuffs—even her angry commands—only made the Poor Thing hang back a little.
When things had gone on so for a week, Laura asked Olga to go with her to the village. She went, but they were no sooner on the road than she began abruptly, “I know what you want of me, Miss Haven, but it’s no use. I can’t be bothered with that Poor Thing—she makes me sick—always hanging around and wanting to get her hands on me. I can’t stand that sort of thing, and I won’t—that’s all there is about it. I’ll go home first.”
When Laura answered nothing, Olga glanced at her grave face and went on sulkily, “Nobody ought to expect me to put up with an everlasting trailer like that girl.”
Still Laura was silent until Olga flung out, “You might as well say it. I know what you are thinking of me.”
“I wasn’t thinking of you, Olga. I was thinking of Elizabeth. If you saw her drowning you’d plunge in and save her without a moment’s hesitation.”