“No, thanks. Just ran over to say that we’ll take the kid off your hands after lunch.”
“Oh, don’t bother——”
“Certainly we will. The car is going back in ten minutes with Max, and she can go along.”
Isabelle could have cried with rage. As it was she swallowed hard, and when Christiansen said: “Is that agreeable to you, Isabelle?” she nodded assent, but the look she cast at Wally might have assassinated him. He, blissfully unaware of it, sauntered away.
“Don’t hurry. Wouldn’t you like some more ice cream?” her host suggested.
“Yes, thank you.”
She did not really want it, but it might serve to delay the hated departure. The car might go without her, and Christiansen would then take her home. She dawdled over the second ice cream, chatting feverishly to prevent his suspecting her plan. But the end came, as the end needs must, and on the veranda they found her mother waiting.
“If she has been eating all this time, you must be bankrupt,” she laughed as they joined her.
“Our conversation absorbed considerable time, didn’t it, Isabelle?”