The Cricket Part 39

"You haven't seen me before," she retorted.

"Well, I see you now. Do you know what you look like?" He smiled down at her.

"Yes. I look like a ripe olive."

"No, you look like a cricket. Are you always so silent? Don't you ever chirp?"

"Me, silent? I've given the Wallys the blow of their lives. They think I'm sick, I've been so good on this rotten cruise."

"What caused the reform--good company?"

"No, I'm getting ready to break it to them, that I may not be taken back at that school. I got into the devil of a row."

"Did you? And they expelled you?"

"Suspended me, until they decide. That's why I had to come on this jolly party."

"You don't like it?"

"Of course, I don't like it. How'd I know whether you'd wake up or not?"

"Did you want me to wake up?" he asked, curiously.

"But, _oui_, aye, _ja_, yes, of course. You don't suppose I want to play with fat old Brendon, do you? Wally is a fearful bore, so there is only you."

"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.

"But he adores me, and he is so bored."

"Conceited jackanapes!" said Mrs. Bryce.

"He'd jump overboard if it wasn't for me. I'm his only salvation from the wax doll."

Wally laughed and the fight was lost. Mrs. Brendon ordered the captain to Palm Beach at once, all steam on. As soon as they landed Jerry prepared for flight. He produced a fict.i.tious telegram calling him at once to New York.

"Jerry, how can you leave me, in the house of the enemy?" Isabelle demanded, when she got him alone.

"Hard lines, kid, but I'm off," he laughed.

"If you loved me you'd take me too."

"You're crazy!"

"But you like me crazy, Jerry."

He grinned and made no reply.

But Isabelle had seen a way. She asked Wally for some money to buy a souvenir. The treasure she bought was a ticket to New York on the night train. When she was ordered to bed because she was too young for hotel hops, she bade Jerry farewell, and went off without protest. From that moment on, she worked fast. She pinned a note to Max's pincushion, in the most approved fashion. She packed a bag, took a cab to the station, went to bed, and what is more, to sleep, in the calm satisfaction, that the story was to have a happy ending!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The romantic adventure of running off with Jerry proved a dismal failure. She had failed to study the psychology of her _particeps criminis_ in the fascination of a.n.a.lyzing her own. Far from being pleased with her company, he was greatly annoyed thereat. He wired her father the facts, begged him to follow to Jacksonville and take her off his hands. When Wally stepped from under, as it were, directing Jerry to hand the pest over to a teacher in New York, the young man's irritation became excessive and he was at no trouble to conceal it.

Isabelle confessed that she had informed her mother "in a pin-cushion note" that she had eloped with Jerry. She pointed out to him that, after this public announcement of her intentions, it would be necessary for him to marry her, "to save her honour" as she phrased it. He laughed, brutally. He inquired her age, and when she boasted that she was "going on seventeen"--that many girls were "wooed and married and a'," by that time--he laughed again.

When, however, she persisted in the idea, and declared her love for him, he talked to her like a disagreeable elder brother, casting reflections upon her breeding and her manners. He told her that she was a silly little thing, that she did not amuse him in the least, and that it was high time she began to conduct herself like a lady. He began to address her, coldly, as Miss Bryce.

She appealed to him, coquetted with him, abused him; all to no effect. He remained formal and distant during the entire journey. She was deeply hurt and humiliated by his actions, but on the whole she got considerable satisfaction out of the role of blighted being.

They both concentrated upon the end of the trip. Jerry longed to be rid of his unwelcome responsibility, and Isabelle was interested because she had arranged a coup for the moment.

Wally had a.s.sured Jerry, by wire, that a teacher from the school would meet Isabelle at the station. Isabelle, in the meantime, had wired Miss Vantine that a change of plans made it unnecessary for the teacher to meet the train. She signed the telegram with her father's name. She awaited the moment when Jerry realized that he was not to be rid of her, with considerable excitement.

Arrived in New York at ten o'clock, she preserved a demure silence while he stormed up and down the station looking for the teacher. He was finally convinced that there was no one to meet them.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

"Come along," he replied, ungraciously, bundling her into a cab.

They went to a studio building and Jerry pounded on somebody's door for ten minutes, in vain. Then he tried another.

"None of your friends care to see us, Jerry," grinned Isabelle. Finally he unlocked a door and turned on a light.

"This is your place, Jerry," she cried; and she began a swift inspection.