"Is this your opinion alone, or the opinion of all the Camp Fire girls?" Mrs. Burton inquired in a tone it was difficult to translate.
Peggy flushed. "Perhaps it is my opinion alone, since it sounds rather hateful. In any case, I have no right to speak except for myself. But if you wish to know the truth, the opinion is pretty general."
"Have the girls the same attitude toward you, Peggy, because of your interest in Ralph Marshall?" Mrs. Burton demanded. "You know how much of your time and thought you give to him these days, even though you rarely mention his name, and you have many more people to care for than Gerry, who is rather singularly alone. If you girls are not fond of her I am not surprised that she prefers Felipe Morris, who, after all, is exceptionally attractive."
Peggy was suddenly upon the defensive.
"I don't think I have allowed my interest in Ralph to interfere with my friendships with the Camp Fire girls," she argued defensively. "But I did not intend being disagreeable about Gerry. She is always amiable and sweet, only it is difficult not to resent her indifference and her absorption in herself."
After this speech Mrs. Burton and Peggy continued their walk in silence for a few moments. Then Mrs. Burton said in a different tone:
"When Gerry comes back this evening, Peggy, I wish you would try to be particularly nice to her. If she has become too much interested in Felipe I cannot help being sorry for her. I have never told you girls much of Gerry's history because she preferred my not telling. But she has had a hard time and no one has ever really cared for her. Her father is dead and her mother an impossibly common person without any good traits of character, so far as I have been able to discover, which would redeem her commonness. So things will be all the more difficult for Gerry if she is under the impression she cares for Felipe. In a little time our Camp Fire summer will be over and they will be separated."
Peggy nodded. "I will do my best. I am sorry to have been so critical. At least Gerry does not make disagreeable speeches about other people! But you are mistaken if you think any of us has ever been unkind to her; it is only that we have found it impossible to become intimate. Of course she and Sally like each other. But if there are facts in Gerry's life she does not wish to discuss, I can understand why she prefers not to develop too close an intimacy with the rest of us, who know almost everything about one another. But don't worry, I presume some accident has delayed Gerry and Felipe. Suppose we return to camp? They may have taken some other route and arrived by this time."
But of course Gerry was not at the Sunrise camp. Within five minutes after Mrs. Burton's and Peggy's return, an automobile appeared containing an unknown man and woman.
The woman asked to be permitted to speak to Mrs. Burton alone.