Poor Isabelle languished in disgrace in her own room for the two days of
her mother's house party, as a result of her Amazonian entrance to the
dinner. Martin Christiansen pleaded her case, took the blame upon
himself; the rest of the party laughed heartily over the episode and
demanded more Isabelle, but Max remained adamant and refused to release
the prisoner.
Wally visited his daughter on Sunday, carrying a note from Christiansen.
He expected to find her raging at her confinement, but, instead, she was
curled up in a chair with a book on her lap, and he had to speak to her
twice before she heard him.
"Hello, Wally," she said, unenthusiastically.
"Hello. How are you getting on?"
"Fine."
"Pity you have to be shut up this nice day."
"I like it."
He grinned derisively.
"I do--honust."
"What was your idea of coming into the drawing room on a horse, anyhow?"
"I wanted to show Mr. Christiansen something. He understood it all
right."
"Made your mother hopping."
"Oh, well, she's always hopping. Why didn't you ask Mr. Christiansen
up?"
"Against orders. No one admitted. He sent a note," he added, handing it
over.
Isabelle read:
DEAR CAPTIVE ISABELLE:
Do you languish in your dungeon cell? Your true knight points an
arrow with this missive, and shoots it in at your window. (I
trust your father will not resent this poetic license.) I was
thrilled at the sight of you as an Amazon, and I agree about the
riding breeches!
Yours eternally,
CHRISTIANSEN-KNIGHT.
"What's poetic license?" she asked Wally.
"Poetic license? Why--it's some kind of license poets get, I suppose."
"Like a dog license, or a chauffeur's?"
"Well, something like that. Why?"
"Oh, nothing."
"What's the book?"
"'Idylls of the King.'"
"Good?"
"Great. I'm going to give it in my theatre."
"Playing all the parts yourself?" he teased.
"All the important ones," she answered, seriously.
"Shall I tell your mother that you are enjoying yourself?"
"Yes."
"I'll toddle along now, I guess."
"Wait a minute. I have to answer him."
"Hurry up about it then."
Wally took up her abandoned book, while she went to her desk to compose.
Dearest Knight:
I languish a little, but not much. I'm writing a play out of
"Idylls of the King." I wish you would be Launcelot, Tommy Page
could be Merlin. I knew you would understand about the Amazon
and horse. I'm glad you liked the . . .
"How do you spell breeches, Wally?"
"What?"
"_Breeches._"
"B-r-e-e-c-h-e-s. What are you saying about them?" he inquired, coming
to look over her shoulder.
"This is private," she said, and wrote:
. . . breeches. Wally did not mind your license. He thought you
ought to have it. The police are so crooel.
Your loving friend,
ISABELLE.
She folded and addressed it carefully.
"Here it is."
"What do I get for running the blockade for you like this?" he inquired.
"Much obliged, Wally," she answered, returning to her chair and her
book.
"You don't appreciate me!" he protested.
"Yes, I do, Wally. I like you the best of all my parents."
Upon her subsequent release, Isabelle turned her entire attention to a
continuous presentation of the "Idylls." Every day the story progressed,
and it would have occupied her abilities for some time, save for an
accident.
The company, including Tommy Page and Teddy Horton, had gathered at
Margie Hunter's, where there was a swimming pool. Isabelle planned to
stage a scene with herself as "Elaine, the fair, the beautiful,"
floating in the Hunters' canoe, laboriously carried up from the shore by
the entire company.
They launched the craft, and laid out Elaine, with flowers about her,
hastily plucked from the garden, and the play was all ready to go on,
when Herbert's crowd came by, on the way to a baseball match. At the
arresting sight of the Lily Maid of Astelot, they halted and demanded
explanations. These were received with exclamations of derision and
delight, so that the incensed leading lady rose from her barge, landed,
and pursued them with the canoe paddle. They gave her a race to the
baseball diamond, where they disarmed her by force, and forgot her.
She sat down and watched their preparations. She heard their mighty
oaths against the ninth man of the team, who hadn't "showed up." She
offered to play, but they jeered at the idea. Herbert Hunter urged her
acceptance as a sub, saying that they could throw her out when the
regular fellow came.
The game was new to Isabelle but she concentrated fiercely upon Herbert
Hunter's orders. By happy accident when she came to bat, she shut her
eyes, fanned the air, and knocked a home run. She sped around the bases
like a "greased rabbit" as Herbert said. When it came to pitching, she
did not star.
"But she's got a loose arm; she could learn all right," her champion
remarked.
It was the proudest compliment of her life. The deserted "Idylls of the
King" company came and sat at a safe distance and watched her,
wide-eyed. Tommy Page rushed forward, shouting:
"Let me play, Herbert."
"Aw, get out of here, kid. We don't want any babies!" was the brief
reply.
"Isabelle's a baby!" howled Tommy.
Now Isabelle happened to be toying with a bat when Tommy made this
disparaging remark threatening to topple her off the dizzy height she
had attained. She saw red! She made an infuriated rush upon him, and
brought the bat down on his offending head. Tommy crumpled up like a
paper doll. There was an awful moment of silence.
"She's killed him," one of the boys whispered.
Herbert tried to stand Tommy up, but his legs folded under him and his
head fell back, so they laid him down again. Isabelle stood, rooted to
the ground. Her terror had frozen her.
"I'll call mama," cried Margie Hunter.
"No, you won't. We must keep it from the police!" ordered her brother.
A shudder went through Isabelle.
"But if he's _dead_?" protested Teddy Horton.
"Let's pour some water on him," suggested somebody.
They all ran to get it, all except Herbert and Isabelle. He noted the
anguish of her set face.
"Never mind, Isabelle; maybe he's only a little bit dead," he comforted
her.
"Will we have to bury him?" she asked, through chattering teeth.
"I suppose so--sometime."
The others returned with a pail of water. They were for dumping it in
one deluge upon poor Tommy, but Herbert prevented their drowning him.
"That isn't the way, you nuts! You dribble it on him. Here, give it to
me."
He knelt over Tommy and poured a slow stream of cold water on his face
and down his neck. When this had no effect he continued the stream over
his body, clad in linen clothes, much as one waters a flower bed. The
children held their breath and watched. Signs of returning life were
visible. As the cold shower struck the pit of his stomach, one knee
hitched. Encouraged, Herbert spilt the last pint in his upturned face.
It contorted, he choked, gasped, yelled defiantly:
"Mmmm-bah-what ye doin'?"
Margie Hunter knelt at his head.
"You aren't dead, are you, Tommy?"
"I'm all wet," he exclaimed, irritably.
Isabelle still stood on the spot where she had struck the blow. Her face
was set and white.
"I guess we better get him in the house now," Herbert advised.
"What will we tell them?" Margie asked.
Herbert looked at Isabelle, then he swept them all with a chieftain's
glance, and remarked:
"Tommy fell into the pool, an' nearly drownded himself. Get me?"
They nodded.
"Make a stretcher with crossed hands."
His men obeyed.
"Now, you girls, move him onto our hands."
They all worked except Isabelle, who never moved.
"Quit. I want to walk," said Tommy.
"All right, Tommy. You fell into the pool."
"I did not," said Tommy.
"Yes, you did, and if you leave it to us, we'll square it so you won't
get licked," Herbert promised.
The stretcher men rose and bore the hero off toward the house, followed
by the children, all except Isabelle. Her breath came in agonized gasps.
As they disappeared she threw herself down on her face and let her
nerves have full sway. She did not cry tears, but her body shook in a
nervous storm of excitement, and misery. She did not hear the swift feet
that approached, she scarcely heard Herbert's embarrassed voice saying:
"Say, Isabelle, it's all right. The chambermaid put him to bed and
telephoned his mother to send him some clothes."
She raised her tragic face to him.
"Will the police take me?" she whispered.
Without meaning to do so at all, Herbert dropped down beside her.
"You didn't kill him. He's all right," he repeated.
Then as a nervous tremor shook her body, he patted her, awkwardly.
"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.