"You can turn in here for the night, and in the morning I will take you to the school."

"Where will you sleep?"

"At a club."

"And leave me in this spooky place alone? I won't stay."

"Don't you see that I cannot take you around town at this hour of the night looking for lodgings?"

"I'll go in the bedroom, and you can sleep on the couch. I won't stay here alone."

Eventually he telephoned a friend of his, named Miss Jane Judd. He invited her to stay with Isabelle. He even went and brought her and explained to her that he would call for Isabelle in the morning.

"Oh, Jerry, don't leave me," cried Isabelle, clinging to him. "I don't want to stay with this strange woman. I want to go with you--always, Jerry--because I love you so. Won't you take me, Jerry?"

"Don't be a little goose, Isabelle."

"Please don't hate me, Jerry," she sobbed.

"I don't hate you when you're sensible."

"Won't you call me Cr-Cricket, just once, Jerry?"

"If you'll be a good girl and go to bed."

"Kiss me good-night."

"I'll do nothing of the kind. Miss Judd, take charge of this crazy kid.

I'll be back in the morning," he said, desperately, as he escaped.

Isabelle wept, more from weariness and chagrin than anything else, but a sort of amused patience on Miss Judd's part caused her to cut short any histrionic display. As they prepared for bed she began to regale Miss Judd with spicy descriptions of the yachting party. Jane Judd laughed heartily.

"You're very naughty, but you are funny," she said to the girl.

"I don't suppose Mrs. Brendon and Althea think I'm funny. Poor old baby-doll Althea! She must be furious. She was so sure of Jerry."

"You hop into bed and forget all about Altheas and Jerrys. Sleep is what you need," said Miss Judd, putting out the light.

But the flow of Isabelle's talk was not to be stayed. She was excited and keyed up high. There was a simplicity and directness about this Judd woman that made her think of Mrs. Benjamin, so she told all about Hill Top and her life there, her love of it, her despair at Mrs. Benjamin's death.

Jane Judd listened with patience and understanding. Here was laid out before her the bared heart of the "poor little rich girl." She pieced the bits together until she had the whole picture of this odd, unnatural, hothouse child--antagonistic to her parents, to her school, yet full of feeling, and coming into the age when the emotions play such havoc. No wonder she had settled her youthful affections upon Jerry. He was so preeminently the type one loves at sixteen, Jane smiled to herself.

"Do you think he will marry me?"

"I doubt it."

"Don't you think he loves me?"

"Lots of other women are in love with Mr. Paxton, too," said Jane.

"You just say that to scare me!" cried Isabelle.

So the self-revelation of this young egotist went on and on until sleep laid a finger on her lips.

Long after she was silent the older woman lay awake, and thought about her, about the conditions in our world that produced her. She was so sorry for the child, even while she laughed at the memory of Jerry's furious embarra.s.sment, at the mercy of her jejune affections.

Jerry arrived early, and Jane and Isabelle parted like old friends.

"Miss Judd is very understanding," remarked Isabelle, en route to the school.

"Yes, isn't she?"

"She's not at all snippy like so many people. It's ridiculous to act as if it were so clever just to be grown up. It isn't clever; it's only luck."

"The luck lies in being young, Isabelle."

"Can't you even _remember_ how you hated being squelched by elders?" she inquired.

"Do they ever squelch you, Cricket?"

"You ought to know. You've done enough of it."

"Let's make a new compact. Let's be good pals," he said, heartily.

"I do not want your _friendship_," she answered, coldly.

"O good Lord, you wretched baby!"--irritably.

"It is all right, Jerry. I see that it can never be, but I shall always care for you deeply," she said with n.o.bility.

When they came to the school Jerry left her with a deep sigh of relief.

She certainly was too much for him. He was no longer surprised that Max and Wally avoided the problem.

There certainly was no fatted calf killed for the return of the prodigal in Miss Vantine's school. At her reappearance an air of chastened endurance settled upon all the teachers from Miss Vantine down to the elocution teacher. But their fears were doomed to disappointment, because Isabelle was for the time being absorbed in her unrequited love affair.

She walked through her lessons like one in a trance; she devoted all her leisure, and some of her study hours, to a series of daily letters to the object of her pa.s.sion. Most of these raptures were never to meet his eye, but they furnished an outlet for the girl's over-full heart, and to the psychologist they would have proved interesting. To her schoolmates she was, as ever, an enigma.

"What is the matter with you, Isabelle? Trying to get one hundred in deportment?" they teased her.

"I have larger things to think of, than deportment," she answered, airily.

"She's in love again," scoffed Margie Hunter.

This was greeted with a deep sigh.