Margaret Adams leaned over and put both hands on Polly’s thin shoulders.
“Don’t you see, dear, how silly, how almost wicked you will be if you run away from the opportunity I am able to give you. I never had any one to help me. It was all nothing but hard, wearing work and few friends, with almost no encouragement.”
“I see, Margaret,” Polly returned gravely. Then, getting up, she sat for a few moments on the arm of her friend’s chair. “Yet I must give up the chance you have given me just the same, dear, and I must go away from New York tomorrow. I can’t tell you why I am going or where because I am afraid you might dissuade me. Oh, I suppose it is foolish, even mad, of me, but I would not be myself if I were reasonable, and I am doing what seems wisest to me. I have written to mother and made her understand and to Sylvia because she almost forced me into promising her that I would keep her informed this winter where I was and what I was doing. I am not confiding in any one else in the whole world. But if you think I am ungrateful, Margaret, you think the very wrongest thing in the whole world and I’ll prove it to you one day, no matter what it costs. The most dreadful part is that I am not going to be able to see you for a long time. That is the hardest thing. You will never know what you have meant to me in these last few years when I have been away from home and my old friends. But I believe you are lonely too, dear, now and then in spite of your reputation and money and all the people who would like to know you.” Polly got up now and began walking restlessly about the room, not knowing how to say anything more without betraying her secret.
She glanced at the photograph of Richard Hunt.
“Are you and Mr. Hunt very special friends, Margaret?” Polly asked, an idea having suddenly come into her mind. “I think he is half as nice as you are and that is saying a great deal.”
For a perceptible moment Margaret Adams did not reply and then she seemed to hesitate, perhaps thinking of something else. “Yes, we have been friends for a number of years, sometimes intimate ones, sometimes not,” she returned finally. “But I don’t want to talk about Mr. Hunt. I still want to be told what mad thing Polly O’Neill is planning to do next.”
“And if she can’t tell you?” Polly pleaded.
“Then I suppose I will have to forgive her, because friendship without faith is of very little value.”
And at this instant Margaret Adams’ maid came in to announce luncheon.