“Wait a minute. Major O’Dell wants to rest,” cried the Captain.
“Let him. Let him rest a month,” came back the answer, as the shining head turned toward the distant shore.
“I’ve got to go after her, O’Dell. It isn’t safe,” protested Larry.
“Who appointed you her nurse?”
“Damn it! man, the child might drown.”
He went overboard and started after Isabelle. O’Dell, with a far-from-pretty word, followed. In some such procession they finally arrived at the beach. Isabelle stepped forth, shook her slim black self, ran up the beach and back like a colt, and joined Miss Watts, sedate as a debutante. Captain O’Leary approached them.
“Miss Watts,” said he, “it is none of my affair, of course, but if you have any authority over this young woman, you will forbid her to swim alone to the farther raft.”
Isabelle grinned at him, but he frowned and walked away without another word.
Isabelle spent the rest of the day near the hotel that she might be at hand if he came out, but there were no signs of him. Percy Pollock had introduced two boys, who urged the girls on all sorts of expeditions, but Isabelle was adamant. She could not bother with boys if there was any chance of another encounter.
Major O’Dell came out on the terrace, saw her, and strolled over.