CHAPTER IX
The Meeting
"They are not coming, Esther, and I am so dreadfully disappointed I think I shall weep," Betty Ashton announced one afternoon about two weeks later. The two girls were waiting in front of a tumble-down little German station in the country, apparently several miles from any thickly settled spot. Esther was seated in a carriage with a driver, but Betty was leaning disconsolately over the station platform raised by a few steps from the ground. A few moments before she had been walking rapidly up and down in far too great a state of excitement and pleasure to keep still. Now, however, the train had pulled in and stopped, letting off several stout passengers, but revealing no sign of Polly O'Neill and the maid, whom Miss Adams was sending on ahead to make things ready for her.
"They must have missed the train; they will be sure to come down early in the morning," Esther comforted.
But Betty mournfully shook her head. "It won't be quite the same if they do. Of course I shall always be happy to see Polly O'Neill at any time or place in this world or the next; still, a postponed pleasure is not as agreeable as one that takes place on time. And think of all we had planned for this evening!"
Under the circumstances there was nothing for Betty to do now but to climb back into the carriage and take her seat next her sister. For the little station was by this time completely deserted and had few attractions for making one linger long in its neighborhood. It was too lonely and dilapidated. There was another station at Waldheim, where passengers usually got out, but the two girls had given Polly special directions to use this one, so that they might have a long drive home through the German forests at sundown, bringing her to their little house in the woods amid the best scenic effects.
"We won't even be able to receive a telegram tonight telling us what has occurred, the office closes so early," Betty continued. "I wish at least that Dick had not chosen to spend tonight in Berlin. Don't you think he is behaving rather curiously lately, Esther? He is so unlike himself and sometimes so cross. Of course I realized that he had a right to be angry when those absurd German youths came wandering out here. But I was glad enough to have him write to Franz Schmidt that he was never to see me again. And we have not exactly the right to forbid Frederick von Reuter's coming to this neighborhood. You don't believe, do you, Esther child, that Dick can be staying in town so often lately to see that abominable girl at our old pension?"
Esther chanced to be gazing at the beautiful landscape through which they were passing, so that the younger girl had no opportunity for observing her face. Moreover, Esther's rather weary and wistful expression would not have altogether surprised her, as both she and her mother had been worrying recently over Esther's appearance. Undoubtedly she was working too hard over her music. She went into town twice a week for lessons and the thought of her appearance in the early autumn might also be making her nervous.
Esther made no answer now to Betty's complaints, but instead pointed toward a hill at the left of them. Near the summit they could see a gray stone house, looking more like a prison than the American ideal of a home, and yet possessing a kind of lonely beauty and dignity.