“Poor little cricket, she wanted a playmate,” he teased.
“She did. I can’t rub my knees together and make a ‘crick,’ you know, so I had to wait until you came to. I’d have pushed you overboard if it hadn’t happened to-day. I’m so full of unused pep, I’m ready to pop!”
“Come on. I’m awake. Now what?”
“Let’s warm up,” she said, and was up and off down the deck in one spring. Jerry pursued. She raced around the whole deck twice, then waited for him to catch up with her.
“Puffing, Jerry? You’re getting fat,” she jeered.
“You impudent little beggar, I’d like to shake you.”
“Try it!”
This might have been called Isabelle’s entrance on the scene, because from that moment on, she took the stage and exerted herself to hold it. She tantalized Jerry every minute. She took all the privileges of youthful sixteen, and made frank, outspoken love to him. She never left him alone with Althea for a moment. She roused in the breast of that blonde young woman such a fierce hatred that murder would have been a mild expression of her desires.
Even Mrs. Abercrombie Brendon took a hand, trying first hauteur and disapproval, descending finally to bribery and entreaty. Max and Wally laboured with their offspring. She only turned big eyes upon them and entreated them to tell her what displeased them. She was trying to be a credit to them, to save them all from complete dissolution through the boredom that had settled down upon them like a cloud.
“You let Jerry Paxton alone,” ordered her mother.