“You are a dear, Betty. I hope you are a prophet as well, because sometimes I am afraid that my day as an artist is past. One so quickly is forgotten and I have been away from my audiences for so long a time. However, I don’t intend to be dismal. I am not permitted to be, as a matter of fact, by Aunt Patricia. At the mildest protest on my part, she is unmerciful; I suppose that is why I do my complaining to you, Betty. Was there ever such a character as Aunt Patricia? I believe she grows fiercer in manner and kinder in heart with each passing year. Her reconstruction work in France was so remarkable that the French government wished to present her with a medal of honor, which Aunt Patricia was about to refuse with scant courtesy when I induced her to allow me to write the letter of thanks at the time she declined the offer. There are moments when she is so autocratic I feel I must rebel and yet I am utterly devoted to her and under eternal obligations.”
“So are we all, Polly, since she saved your life in France and may be saving it again with her care of you this winter. So don’t behave like an unruly child. You do manage to keep absurdly young, Polly. Molly, your own twin sister, and I have confessed to each other that we feel ten years your senior. Is it because you are a genius or because you have remained the guardian of the Sunrise Camp Fire girls and been with girls so much that you continue one of them?”
“I decline to answer. Remember, Betty, it was you and not I who captured the young poet’s attention this evening. I wonder if he is to be our nearest neighbor during the winter? I trust not, for I believe he would be of small service should we get into a difficulty. We are more apt to be forced to look after him. By the way, Betty, I am glad the William Blake poem did not invoke a shiver in you. It struck me that the suggestion of the wolf raging wide through the dun forest was unpleasantly suggestive, although we are assured that the wolf has vanished from the Adirondack Mountains as surely as the Indian braves and that only their ghosts haunt their beloved woods.”
Again for a few moments there was a renewed silence, the two friends of many years with their arms entwined about each other continuing to walk up and down contemplating the exquisite landscape under the approaching shadow of the night.
Nearly of the same height, Polly O’Neill Burton, who in social life was Mrs. Richard Burton, was far slenderer than her companion, giving her an effect of greater youth.
Betty Graham, who had been Betty Ashton in former days, had grown from a pretty girl into a rarely beautiful and charming woman, distinguished for her grace of manner and social gifts. She was more beautiful than her friend. Even as a girl Polly O’Neill had never been beautiful in any conventional fashion. Her face was long, her features slightly irregular, with a broad, low brow and delicate, pointed chin. She had a wealth of dusky black hair and amazing blue eyes of swiftly changing color and expression and a wide, mobile mouth.
Once long ago Betty Ashton had said: “One never is aware of the fact that Polly possesses any other features than her eyes and mouth. Her eyes always hold your attention until she begins to speak and then the movement of her lips, the haunting quality of her voice absorb one.”
To-night the figure which moved beside her seemed to be thinner and frailer than at any time since her marriage.
Trying Miss Patricia might be upon occasions, yet at present Betty Graham could only rejoice at the thought of her constant vigilance. Equally devoted she and the Camp Fire girls might be, yet they possessed neither the wisdom nor the authority of Miss Patricia. She remembered that although pliable in small matters, in any question of her art Polly O’Neill had been singularly obstinate. Had she not in her girlhood disappeared from her family and friends and in defiance of their wish devoted herself to her career?
At present would she remain shut up in the winter woods with the new play waiting to be produced and New York City only a few hours away?