“Don’t belittle your brave deeds,” said Nancy, “and don’t try to excuse that cowardly man who called out ‘sharks!’”
As the two girls disappeared into the pavilion, a young man about seventeen emerged from one of the alleys. He was tall and well-built with handsome, regular features and brown hair, but there was an angry flush on his face and a snarl on his weak, rather effeminate mouth. He did not leave the pavilion, but waited until Nancy and Billie came out of the bath-house, and as they walked arm in arm down the corridor, he took a long look at their two faces and followed slowly after them, his hands in his pockets.
“Little cats!” he ejaculated, as he turned toward the hotel, “I’ll get even with them yet.”
Miss Campbell and the other girls were sitting in big wicker chairs on the piazza. They, too, had heard nothing of Timothy’s drowning, and were laughing and chatting together while they absorbed iced fruit drinks through long straws.
“My dear children,” cried Miss Campbell, “how long you have been. Here are some delicious lemonades especially ordered for us by that mysterious individual, Mr. Ignatius Donahue. I really wish he would come forth from his hiding-place. He reminds me of an attentive ghost.”
CHAPTER IV.—A RACE AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
“I feel rather badly about leaving the poor old Comet in his stable all day,” observed Billie, who had taken a long rest after her adventure in the water that morning and was enjoying a trip in the Firefly, Mr. Donahue’s motor-boat.
“He will be wondering why you brought him down if you use his rival the very first afternoon,” said Elinor.
They were skimming over the blue water of Lake Worth, which was dotted with every kind of pleasure craft imaginable. The shores of Palm Beach shimmered gold in the afternoon sunshine and across the lake came the faint sound of music from the band in the Grove.
“Any kind of machine is glad to take a rest, my dear, human or otherwise,” put in Miss Campbell. “No doubt the Comet is well pleased to stop whirring and whirling for awhile and stay quietly in the garage.”