"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! 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 analyzing 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.