“You’re all right, Isabelle, it was just an accident,” he comforted her.
She shook her head, and the tears came. Herbert leaned over and planted a kiss under her right ear. She stopped crying. He did not know what more to say, so he just sat by. In that half hour of self-accusation, of reaction from terror, of the consciousness of the sympathy of a friend who had saved her from the police, Isabelle closed the chapter of childhood and stepped over into young girlhood.
CHAPTER TEN
During the next few years of Isabelle’s life she was more of a trial to her household than ever before, if such a thing were possible. She overplayed the tomboy, just as she did every rôle she essayed.
From the moment Herbert Hunter came to her rescue in the affair of Tommy Page, he was exalted to the highest pedestal in her temple of worship. Boys knew what loyalty meant. Her hero had forced all the witnesses on that occasion to keep absolute silence about it—with police, arrest, and prison terms as alternatives. That he, “an older boy,” should condescend to champion her cause was a triumph for our heroine.
She scorned girls, she endured only the society of males from this time on. She could scarcely be forced into any costume but her riding clothes. She applied herself to sports until she played better than most boys. By disguising this fact, and pretending to be a mere novice, she was admitted to their games.
Herbert accepted her as Man Friday with considerable reluctance, but she made him feel that her very gratitude gave her a sort of hold on him. She was very useful, if you knew how to handle her; and sheer loss, if you did not. She abhorred authority. If you told her she must do a thing, she stubbornly refused. If you asked it as a favour, it was done instantly. If you dared her to do a thing, nothing could stop her. She was appallingly indifferent to danger. She terrified the more timid souls in Herbert’s crowd. But aside from the fact that she was good at their games, her main contribution was the original things she thought up for them to do.