"Why, what do you mean, Miss Mercer?" Gladys gasped.
"Exactly what I say, Gladys," said Eleanor, in the same level voice. "You are not fit to be one of us unless you mean sincerely and earnestly to keep the Law of the Fire. We are a sisterhood; no girl who is not only willing, but eager, to become our sister, may join us."
Slowly the meaning of her rejection seemed to sink into the mind of Gladys.
"Do you mean that you're not going to let me join?" she asked in a shrill, high pitched voice that showed she was on the verge of giving way to an outbreak of hysterical anger.
"For your own sake it is better that you should not join now, Gladys. Listen to me. I do not blame you greatly for this. I would rather have you act this way than be a hypocrite, pretending to believe in our law when you do not."
"Oh, I hate you! I hate the Camp Fire! I wouldn't join for anything in the world, after this!"
"There will be time to settle that when we are ready to let you join, Gladys," said Eleanor, a little sternness creeping into her voice, as if she was growing angry for the first time. "To join the Camp Fire is a privilege. Remember this—no girl does the Camp Fire a favor by joining it. The Camp Fire does not need any one girl, no matter how clever, or how pretty, or how able she may be, as much as that girl needs the Camp Fire. The Camp Fire, as a whole, is a much greater, finer thing than any single member."
Sobs of anger were choking Gladys when she tried to answer. She could not form intelligible words.
Eleanor glanced at Mary Turner, and the Guardian of the new Camp Fire, on the hint, put her arm about Gladys.
"I think you'd better go back to the camp now, dear," she said, very gently. "You and I will have a talk presently, when you feel better, and perhaps you will see that you are wrong."