“But she hasn’t spoken. Oh, Orilla, please get hold of her. I tell you she’s—stunned!”
In spite of her seeming indifference, Orilla was leaning over the side of the launch, and with her help Nancy had managed to get Rosa to the surface. She opened her eyes, sputtered water from her mouth, gasped, gagged and gurgled as if she were almost choked with water. Holding to the low side of the launch, Nancy ordered and bossed like a real life saver, but Rosa, although now able to help herself, made little headway at doing so.
Orilla scolded and grumbled. She hadn’t time for such foolishness, and a girl who couldn’t get up on her own dock ought to drown—according to her.
“She’s got to get into your boat,” insisted Nancy, “she can’t climb to the dock.”
“All right, then, get in,” growled Orilla, “and be quick about it. I’ve got to hurry!”
“You always have,” retorted Nancy, none too pleasantly. “It seems to me, you might try to be—human, once in a while.”
“Good enough for you to talk,” flung back the other girl. “But you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes,” Rosa managed to gurgle, “and it’s all your fault, Orilla Rigney, I’ve never had any—any peace since—”
“Cut it!” yelled the red-haired girl, so sharply that even Nancy, who was on the end of the dock, turned suddenly to see the girl’s face masked in rage.
Rosa was now in the launch, Nancy sat, exhausted, on the end of the dock, but Orilla, at the engine, looked so peculiarly excited that instinctively Nancy shouted: