“Oh no, it wasn’t all plain sailing for me either, Miss Polly, and it isn’t now for that matter, if it is of any help to you to know it,” he added, realizing that his companion was absolutely unconscious of having said anything amusing.
“Before I gave up trying to act Belinda I got a small position in a cheap stock company.” Polly had at last reached the point of her story. “The company has been traveling through New England all winter and is still on the road. We only happened to be in Boston during the holidays. I have been playing almost any kind of part, sometimes I am a maid, sometimes a lady-in-waiting to the queen; once or twice, when the star has been ill, I have had to take the character of the heroine. Of course all this must sound very silly and commonplace to you, Mr. Hunt, but honestly I am learning a few things: not to be so self-conscious for one thing and to work very, very hard.”
“Too hard, Miss Polly, I am afraid,” Richard Hunt replied, looking closely at his companion and feeling oddly moved by her confession. Perhaps the girl’s effort would amount to nothing and perhaps she was unwise in having made it, nevertheless one could not but feel sorry that her friends had suspected her of ingratitude and lack of affection and that she was engaged in some kind of foolish escapade. Richard Hunt felt extremely guilty himself at the moment.
“Oh no, I am not working too hard or at least not too hard for my health,” Polly argued. “You see both my mother and Sylvia are looking after me. Sylvia made me promise her once, when I did not understand what she meant, that I would let her know what I was doing all this winter. So I have kept my promise and every once and a while good old Sylvia travels to where I happen to be staying and looks me over and gives me pills and things.” Polly smiled. “You don’t know who Sylvia is and it is rather absurd of me to talk to you so intimately about my family. Sylvia is my step-sister, but she used to be merely my friend when we were girls. She is younger than I am but a thousand times cleverer and is studying to be a physician. She has not much respect for my judgment but she is rather fond of me.”
“And your chaperon?” Perhaps Mr. Hunt realized that he was asking a good many questions when he and Polly O’Neill were still comparative strangers; yet he was too much concerned for her welfare at present to care.
Polly did not seem to be either surprised or offended by his questioning, but pleased to have some one in whom she might confide.
“Oh, just at first mother sent one of her old friends about everywhere with me. But when she got tired we found this Mrs. Martins who was having a hard time in New York and needed something to do. She is really awfully nice and is teaching me French in our spare moments. She used to be a dressmaker, I believe, but could not get enough work to do.” Suddenly Polly straightened up and put out her hand this time in an exceedingly friendly fashion.
“Goodness, Mr. Hunt, what a dreadfully long time I have been keeping you here and how good you have been to listen to me so patiently!” she exclaimed. “You will keep my secret for me, won’t you? This winter I don’t want my friends to know what I am trying to do or to come to see me act. I have not improved enough so far.”
Still holding Polly’s hand in a friendly clasp, her visitor rose.
“But you will let me come, won’t you?” he urged. “You see I am in your secret now and so I am different from other people. Besides I am very grateful to you for your faith in me and I don’t like to remember now that I first tried bullying you into confiding in me.”