"So would you if you had to lie here day in and day out a—a helpless cripple and left all alone——"
Jerry looked around the quiet room. There was something very lonely about it—and that patter of the rain——
"Isn't Mrs. Hicks——"
"Oh—Hicks. She's just a crosspatch! You all leave me to servants because I can't move. Nobody loves me the least little bit. I—I wish I were dead."
To Jerry there was something very dreadful in Isobel's words. What if her wish came true, then and there? What if the breath suddenly stopped—and it would be too late to take back the wish——
"Oh, don't say that again, Isobel. Can't I stay with you?"
Isobel turned such a grateful face from her pillow that Jerry's heart was touched. Of course poor Isobel was lonely and she and Gyp had selfishly neglected her. Even though Isobel did not care very much for her, she would doubtless be better company than—no one. She slipped the bathing-cap in her pocket and slowly drew off her coat and hat.
"Do you mind staying?" Isobel asked in a very pleading voice.
Jerry might reasonably have answered: "I do mind. I cannot stay; this is the afternoon of the great inter-school swimming meet and I am late, now, because I came home for my cap," but she was so thrilled by the simple fact of Isobel's wanting her—her, that everything else was forgotten.
"Of course I don't. It's horrid and stupid for you to lie here all day long. Shall I read?"