The motor boat from the _Empress_ was at the pier when the three Bryces
made their appearance on the day of the departure. They were taken out
to the yacht at once, where Mr. Abercrombie Brendon was already
ensconced. He was a pompous, red-faced little man, with a great deal of
stomach and a great deal of manner. He was in high good humour with the
weather and the world in general. He greeted Isabelle by singing, a line
from a light opera success of his younger days--
"Isabella, Isabella, the love-e-ly queen of Spain."
"Silly ass!" said she to herself, and she went to lean over the rail and
watch for the coming of the others. They arrived shortly and she took
inventory. First Mrs. Abercrombie Brendon ascended the steps. She was a
big, arrogant, impressive woman whom Isabelle immediately named
"Hecuba." She was followed by a lovely, blonde creature, with deep-blue
eyes and a short upper lip.
Isabelle fixed her attention upon the last comer, who certainly was an
attention-fixing young man. He was extremely handsome. Here was the one
and only hope of this party, so far as she was concerned.
There was a great clatter of greetings.
"Come here, Isabelle, and make your manners," ordered her mother. She
obeyed, reluctantly.
"So glad to have a young thing with us, my dear," boomed Mrs. Brendon in
her big voice. "Althea, this is Isabelle Bryce. Miss Morton, Isabelle."
The lovely vision smiled faintly and nodded.
"This is Mr. Jerry Paxton," Mrs. Brendon continued.
Isabelle shot a glance at him, but he failed to get it.
"How do you do?" he said, absently, turning to help Althea adjust her
veil.
There followed the ceremony of apportioning the staterooms, getting into
deck hats, and the other preliminaries, while the boat was steaming down
the harbour. Isabelle stayed on deck and made friends with the captain
and the sailors. It was fun to watch them padding about so swiftly,
coiling ropes, and doing their tasks so featly.
The first few days were clear and beautiful. They spent the time on
deck. Isabelle appraised the situation the first day out. Mrs. Brendon
intended that the handsome Paxton man should be permanently annexed to
the blonde beauty, who entirely concurred in the idea. The Paxton man
was not yet entirely won over to the plan; therefore, he was restless
and on his guard. Max flirted with old Brendon, and Wally was at loose
ends. He occasionally donated his society to his daughter.
"I'll make a bet with you, Wally, that Madame Hecuba Brendon won't put
it through."
"Put what through?"
"Marry Jerry Paxton to the lady with the short lip."
Wally laughed.
"You don't miss anything, do you?"
"I do not."
"You're too young to notice such things."
"Lord! but parents are a bore!" quoth Isabelle at that.
For the most part she kept out of their way those first days. Max
noticed it, and warned Wally that she was probably cooking up some
mischief to explode on them.
It would have surprised them could they have peeped into the girl's
mind. She liked being alone, being still. There had been considerable
strain to keeping up a reputation as a school terror. It had meant being
constantly on the alert for an opportunity to misbehave; it meant
thinking up plots, living up to an exacting standard of wickedness. The
reaction had come with these idle days and she enjoyed it.
Then, too, she loved the vastness of the sea and the sky, between which
they made their way. She sat for hours watching white gulls that
followed in their wake. She wondered if they were not the souls of the
departed, and she conceived one friendly one, which flew quite near them
for days, to be the soul of Mrs. Benjamin. Sometimes when she was sure
that no one was near she stood in the stern and called out to it.
"Dear Mrs. Benjamin, I know you're there. Don't leave me, will you? I
love so to watch you circling up there. Is it nice in Heaven?"
She pondered about death a good deal, and about heaven. She had not been
able to bear such thoughts since Mrs. Benjamin died, so bitter had been
her grief. But there was soothing in the silent vastness, and she came
to think of heaven as a sublimated Hill Top with Mrs. Benjamin still
teaching the young.
She watched Jerry and Althea pacing the deck together. She noted the way
she looked at him--the half-playful wholly tender way she appropriated
him. It led the girl to ponder upon love also. Here were two beautiful
people who, according to all the rules of play and story, should be
making love every minute, in this paradise. Why did the beautiful young
man hesitate?
[Illustration: _She watched Jerry and Althea pacing the deck together.
. . . It led the girl to ponder upon love also_]
She decided to interview Althea and see what sort of creature she might
be. It was not so simple, because Althea was barely aware of Isabelle's
existence, also she was never without Jerry at her side, if either she
or Mrs. Brendon could manage it. But there came a chance, when she was
alone on deck, and Isabelle hastily took the vacated seat beside her.
Althea glanced at her, faintly surprised.
"Are you having a good time on this cruise?" Isabelle opened fire.
"Oh, yes--very. Aren't you?"
"Not especially. But then I haven't any handsome young man to play
with."
Althea frowned and made her first mistake.
"You're quite too young for any such ideas," she said.
"I'm out of the cradle, you know!"--hotly. "I'm old enough to know that
I could handle a handsome young man better than you do, for all your
age."
"I think you're extremely impertinent!"
"You ought to make a friend of me. I can tell you a thing or two. For
one thing, he's too sure of you."
Althea rose, white with fury.
"I shall certainly report this impudence to your mother," she said,
haughtily, moving away. But Isabelle fired the last shot.
"Oh, Max will agree with me. You ought to watch her. She's got some
technique herself."
After that encounter Althea looked over and through Isabelle, as if she
were thin air. It amused the girl immensely, and in her wise head she
made a fair judgment of Miss Morton's mind and disposition. She decided
that she was entirely unworthy of the god-like Jerry, and she was glad
he hesitated.
She began to watch him with increased interest. She made romances about
him, with herself as heroine. She played scenes in which she outwitted
the haughty beauty, and fled with the hero. She began to pity Jerry. He
was the unwilling victim of Althea and Mrs. Brendon. How could she,
Isabelle Bryce, rescue him from their clutches?
In the process of her dreaming she wrecked the yacht, Jerry saved her, and
as soon as they reached shore they were married. In one version, Althea,
seeing that he loved Isabelle, threw herself overboard and perished. There
were many stories, but they always had one ending--Isabelle won and wed
the handsome young man.
One windy morning when the other "stuffies" (as she called them to
herself) were playing bridge inside, Isabelle squatted on deck, her chin
on her knees, watching the big breakers, listening to the scream of the
petrels, and as usual building air castles about herself and Jerry,
when lo! her hero came striding down the deck and all at once he stopped
before her.
"Hello! Aren't you afraid you'll blow overboard?" he inquired.
"No, I'm not. You've waked up, have you?"
"Have I been asleep?"
"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 fictitious 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!