The Camp Fire Girls Across the Seas

by Margaret Vandercook

"Take Betty home with me!" Dick Ashton's exclamation was in itself a denial of any such intention. "Why, Esther, I hadn't the faintest thought of either mother or the Princess coming along with me. You don't mean that Professor Hecksher has suggested that you take a rest and that you are going to see your father?"

With a frown and a sudden nervous movement of her hands Esther shook her head. But they were now within sight of their little station, where several other passengers were waiting and no other word of intimate conversation was possible between them until they were on the train. And Esther made no protest when Dick, in spite of their poverty, discarding his regular ticket, bought seats for them both in an empty first-class coach. There they could be alone and without interruption. And there was no denying that their conversation, which had just been broken off so abruptly, must be continued as soon as possible. They were both too full of things too long left unsaid.

"Of course you know, Dr. Ashton, that there is not the remotest chance of my going back home for a long time," Esther went on when once again they were settled, just as though no interruption to their talk had ever taken place. "For you see after I make my début at this concert I have to go on studying. I have even to make a reputation here in Europe if I can before I return to the United States. Professor Hecksher says that it is absolutely necessary, and he is willing to help me get engagements to earn some money, so I shall not continue to be so dreadful an expense."

"Sounds rather glorious, doesn't it, Esther, fame and fortune all ready and waiting to drop at your feet? What a wonderful thing it is to be born into this world with a great talent and how it must make you look down on us poor mortals who have to grind and grind for just a bare existence. I'll be proud some day to say that I have had the honor of knowing you. You won't forget we were acquaintances, will you, Esther?" the young man concluded, it was hard to tell whether in bitterness or joking.

And his companion turned her face away, pretending to glance out of the car window at the uninteresting stretch of country and the rapidly disappearing telegraph poles.

"I shall never forget that I was a girl being raised in an orphan asylum and that your mother took me to her home and did what she could to give me my first start in learning to sing, if that is what you mean, Dr. Ashton," Esther continued. "Neither can I forget what you have always done for Betty, though I feel of course that Betty will more than repay all the people who love her. But if you mean that you only wish us to be acquaintances in the future, why—" But in spite of her strong effort at self-control Esther's lips were trembling and the tears gathering in her eyes.

Nevertheless she made no effort at withdrawal when Dick Ashton for an instant placed his hands over her own tightly clasped ones.

"You are not playing fair, Esther," he urged, "for you know in your heart that I meant no such thing."

Then both the girl and the man were silent with the vision of their possible futures before them. If only Dick Ashton could have asked Esther to give up the career ahead of her, to renounce her music, to come back home with him to the United States to be his wife. But what had he to offer in exchange for these great sacrifices? He was a penniless young doctor without more than a hundred dollars in the world once he had paid his passage home and set up some kind of office. Moreover, suppose he should win patients and success sooner than other men? Did he not owe his first earnings to his mother and to his sister, Betty, whose courage and resourcefulness had helped him prepare for his career? Besides, what did Esther not also feel that she owed to this same sister? Plainly she had let him know her views on that afternoon some time ago when he had tried dissuading her from making her début if the thought of a professional life made her unhappy. Esther had then said that she felt that she must work until she was able to take care of herself and Betty and even to assist her father and new stepmother. For Herr Crippen was growing older and had nothing except what he earned by his music pupils. No, Esther's way was straight before her and one owed it to a great talent like hers to make the best of it. She had never manifested for Richard Ashton more than a warm friendliness which was natural enough to their position. Neither had he ever given Esther any reason to believe that the old kindness and sympathy which he had once felt for her had deepened into emotions much stronger. Yet, to him Esther's plain face, with its pallor and serious sweetness, with its big mouth and splendidly modeled lips was more beautiful than all his sister Betty's vivid prettiness.

"Betty!" The thought of her brought him back to the every-day world again. He laughed good-humoredly.