Part 11 (1/2)

”Oh, I am dreadful to look at, but I must not complain,” she answered wistfully. ”A Camp Fire girl ought to have learned some lessons in bravery and endurance. Please let's don't talk about me. I want to thank you, for if it had not been for you, I might have--I can't bear to think even now what might have happened to me.”

”Then don't,” the young man returned brusquely, but Betty did not this time misunderstand his manner. ”I did not do anything. I ought to have gotten to you sooner. I have been hating myself ever since for the time I took to reach you. After all you had done for me in the past!”

The next moment the girl put her hand into the boy's hard, work-roughened one. ”Ask Nan to tell the others for me. And remember that no matter what has happened or may happen in the future, I shall always feel myself in your debt, not you in mine.”

CHAPTER XV

SECRETS

It was sundown. The big Ashton house, although so filled with people, was oddly quiet. Betty Ashton slipped out of her own room into the hall and hurried along the empty corridor. Once only she stopped and smiled, partly from amus.e.m.e.nt and partly from satisfaction. Herr Crippen's door was half open and so was Miss McMurtry's and the Professor was playing on his violin. Such sentimental love ditties!

The air throbbed with German love songs.

And Betty had a mischievous desire to stick her head into Miss McMurtry's room and see if she was engaged in some maiden-like occupation, such as marking school papers or reading the _Woodford Gazette_. Or was she sitting, as she should be, with her hands idly folded in her lap and her heart and mind absorbed in the music? Never had Betty given up her idea that a romance was in the making between their first Camp Fire guardian and Esther's father. And often since their coming to live in her house had she not seen slight but convincing evidences? Why should Donna so often appear with a single white rose pinned to her dress or take to playing the same tunes on the piano that the Professor played on his violin, particularly when she was an exceedingly poor pianist?

Nevertheless it was not awe of her teacher and guardian that kept Betty from investigating the state of her emotions at this moment; neither was it any fear of antagonism between them, for since Esther's departure to study in New York, Miss McMurtry apparently felt more affection for Betty than for any of the other Camp Fire girls. No, it was simply because she had a very definite purpose which she wished to accomplish without interruption or opposition.

The next instant and she had paused outside a closed door and stood listening tensely. There were no noises inside, no voices, nor the stir of any person moving about. Betty put her hand on the k.n.o.b and opened it silently.

Instantly there was a little cry and Betty and Polly O'Neill were in each other's arms.

”Betty, you darling,” Polly gasped, ”turn on every light in this room and let me stare and stare at you. There isn't anything in the world the matter with you. You are as lovely as you ever were. Oh, I have been so frightened! I have not believed what anybody told me, and it seemed it must be a part of my punishment that you had been injured.

It is absurd of me, I suppose, but I have had a kind of feeling that perhaps if I had been at Meg's party I should have been with you at the time so that it couldn't have happened.”

”Foolish Polly! But when was Polly anything but foolish?” the other girl returned, taking off her cap and pus.h.i.+ng back her hair. ”You see I am a sight, dear, but it does not matter a great deal. I am kind of getting used to myself these last few days. So I didn't see any reason why, since you are better and I am perfectly well, we could not be together. Even if it does give you a kind of a shock to look at me, you'll get over it, won't you?”

In reply Polly had one of her rather rare outbursts of affection. She was never so demonstrative as the other girls. Her devotions had ways of expressing themselves in an occasional compliment tendered perhaps in some whimsical, back-handed fas.h.i.+on, or in a fleeting caress, which came and was gone like the touch of a b.u.t.terfly's wing.

Now, however, she took her friend's face between her two hands and kissed her quietly, almost solemnly upon the line of her injury.

”Never say a thing like that to me again as long as you live, Betty Ashton. Perhaps I haven't as much affection as other people. Mother and Mollie are both insisting it lately. Still I know that----but how silly we are to talk of it! You are not changed. Of course I am sorry that your hair had to be cut off, but it will grow out again and the scar will disappear. I wish I could get rid of my”--Polly hesitated--”blemishes so easily,” she finished.

Betty looked puzzled. ”What do you mean? Sylvia says you are very much better and that there is no reason why you should not get up. She declares that it is only that you won't and that she does not intend nursing you or letting any one else take care of you after a few days, unless you do what Dr. Barton tells you. Sylvia is a dreadfully firm person. She was quite angry with me when I said that I did not believe you were well and that I was quite strong enough now to take care of you and you should not get out of bed until you had entirely recovered.”

”But I have entirely recovered and I am well and somehow I can't manage to deceive Sylvia Wharton no matter how hard I try,” Polly announced in a half-amused and half-annoyed manner.

”Then why are you trying to?” Betty naturally queried. Of course one never actually expected to understand Polly O'Neill's whims, but now and then one of them appeared a trifle more mysterious than the others.

”If you are still tired and feel you prefer to remain in bed, that is a sure sign you are not strong enough to get up, and Dr. Barton and Sylvia ought to realize it,” she continued, still on the defensive.

But Polly only smiled at her. ”But, dear, I don't prefer to remain in bed. I am so deadly bored with it that as soon as I am left alone I get up and dance in the middle of the floor just to have a little relief. Can't you and mother and Mollie understand (I don't believe any one does except Sylvia) that I don't want to get up because I don't want to have to face the music?”

Still the other girl looked puzzled.

”Can't you see that as long as I have been able to be sick n.o.body has dared to say very much to me about my escapade in New York? Oh, of course I know what they think and mother did manage to say a good deal before we came home; still, there is a great deal more retribution awaiting me. In the first place, I shall have to go home to the Wharton house. I realize it has been dreadful, my being sick here, but I am everlastingly grateful to you and your mother. Mr. Wharton won't say anything much; he really is very kind to me; but naturally I know what he thinks. And then when Frank Wharton is there it will be so much worse. You see, Frank and I quarreled once, because I thought he was rude to mother. And of course he considers my disobedience worse than his rudeness. And as he is perfectly right, I can't imagine how I shall answer him back the next time we argue.”

As Polly talked she had risen into a sitting posture in bed and was now leaning her chin on her hand in a characteristic att.i.tude and quite unconscious of the amusing side to her argument until Betty laughed.

Polly had on a scarlet flannel dressing sacque and her hair was tied with scarlet ribbons. And indeed her cheeks were almost equally vivid in color.