“How could I help–remembering–that icy train-wreck?” He was slipping the rope in a noose under her arms. “Perhaps, some day.... Well! I’m glad to be ‘Jack at a Pinch’ again, anyway.”
“R-ready!” he shouted then.
And Pem was drawn up, to face a Highland squall from Andrew.
“Hoot! lassie, an’ air ye sech a fechless tomboy that a mon mun keep his een sticket on ye a’ the time?” the Scot angrily demanded. “How cud ye be sech a nickum as to try sitting in yon–Deev’s Chair?”
“Ask–ask the other nickum; he did it first,” flung back the rescued one.
But under cover of the broad scolding, the other, the Jack at a Pinch–friend in need for the second time–had again slipped off, without a word from either of the girls.
“Bah! he is a nickum–a mysterious imp,” snapped Pemrose, the fire that smoldered behind her white face leaping up. “Can’t be shyness with him; he doesn’t look the least bit shy! Oh-h! what a fool I was to give him a chance to help me–save me–in a ‘pinch’, again.”
Tears were springing to her eyes now,–tears of reaction.
She felt that an eighteen-year-old youth, privileged to save her life twice–it seemed a privilege at the moment–might, at least, have had the manners to let her thank him for it.
“Oh! he’s the nicest and the–hor-rid-est–boy I ever saw,” wailed Una, in tribute to the train-wreck, still a nightmare on her mind.