Not comprehending exactly what the younger girl was trying to say and yet understanding that she would make herself plain later on, the woman quietly waited. She was interested in the processes of Polly's mind and liked to see them work themselves out.
"Do you like foreign men?" was the girl's next apparently irrelevant question.
But by this time Miss Adams had begun to have a faint suspicion of what might be at the end of her companion's confession. For in the past two weeks since Polly's, Betty's and Esther's visit to the German forest, she too had become interested in some of its consequences. Yet she answered with entire truthfulness:
"Why, of course, Polly child, I like foreign men. Why should not one? It is absurd and prejudiced to like or dislike a person because of his nationality; it is the man's own character that counts."
"Oh, yes, I know that is what one should feel and say. I don't mean to be rude," Polly added quickly, blushing over her fatal habit of saying whatever was uppermost in her mind. "I was just wondering whether it was actually true. Don't most of us really in the end like best the kind of people and life to which we have been accustomed. Now, for example, just suppose that we take a girl who has been brought up in the United States almost all her life, where she has had boy acquaintances and friends whom she has known in a simple, intimate way, without thinking of any one of them seriously. Then bring her to a foreign country, take Germany, just when she is about grown. All of a sudden imagine a young fellow turning up entirely unlike her old boy friends, handsome, charming and behaving as though he were falling in love with her. Do you believe that the girl could honestly care for him? Don't you think that it would just be a mistaken fancy on her part and that some day when she grew older she would want her old friends and associations again. Why, she might even meet one of her former acquaintances and find that she liked him best, because after all he was also an American and thought about life and women and lots of other things more in the way that she did."
Margaret Adams covered both ears with her hands. "My dear Polly," she began, "if you think I have imagination enough to follow all those supposings and all those mixed-up sentences and ideas, you must consider me cleverer than I am. But as long as I happen to be able to guess whom you are talking about, don't you think we might be straightforward. We will never speak of it to any one else, nor to each other if it seems wiser not. But of course you mean——"
"Betty!" finished Polly. And then sighing profoundly: "You see, ever since our meeting in the woods the other day with Carl von Reuter he has been coming to see Betty. He brought his father, the old count, to call on Mrs. Ashton and has been sending Betty flowers and they have been riding together and he does not even pretend not to admire her tremendously. He makes Esther and me perfectly miserable, for you see Germans seem so different from Americans, so sentimental and silly, I think. Why, I overheard Lieutenant von Reuter calling Betty Brunhilde, and instead of being bored she actually appeared pleased. Esther and I can't understand it. Of course we realize that it is absurd to believe that people can learn to care for each other in two weeks, yet just the same Betty is behaving strangely. And Esther wonders if it is her duty to speak to Richard Ashton before things go any further. Mrs. Ashton would be no good; she is too pleased over Betty's being admired by a member of the German nobility. She would never be able to see all the mischief that might result from it. But then Esther and Dick Ashton are not friends as they once were. Dick has hardly anything to do with Esther nowadays—even leaves on an earlier train the mornings that she has to go into Berlin for her music lessons. And yet when Esther first came to live with Mrs. Ashton, when she was a hundred times less attractive than she is now, why he was kinder to her than any of the rest of us. Oh me, oh my, it is a strange world!" And down went Polly's chin into the palm of her hand in a characteristic manner.
For a moment Margaret Adams did not reply. For perhaps a good deal better than Polly she appreciated the disaster that might result from the present circumstances. Betty was only nineteen and of course Polly was right in presuming that she could hardly know her own mind. And yet the romance and beauty of her surroundings, the good looks of the young lieutenant with the glamour of his title and position, were sufficiently strong influences to affect a much older person.
Yet notwithstanding Betty's beauty and charm, Miss Adams did not have the same uneasiness that Esther and Polly suffered. For she did not believe that Lieutenant von Reuter could marry a girl without a dower, no matter what his personal inclination might be. And Betty had no money and so far as any one knew no chance of receiving any amount except what her brother and sister might some day be able to earn. The danger that the older woman dreaded was that Betty herself might possibly misunderstand the young foreigner's attentions and that she might learn to care for him more than would be wise for her happiness.
Frowning, Miss Adams waited for a moment without speaking. And yet she looked so entirely interested and sympathetic that Polly dropped to the ground at her feet, taking one of her slim hands in hers and pressing it softly to her lips. For it was wonderfully kind of this famous lady to have forgotten herself so completely that she felt as deep a concern over Betty Ashton as though she had known her all her life.