“I was only thinking of something; I beg your pardon, dear,” Betty replied quietly.
Polly frowned. “You are not to think of anything or anybody except me today,” she demanded jealously. “You have had months and months to think about other people. This is the best of what I have been working for—just to have you girls with me like this, and have you praise me and make love to me as Mollie did. Yes, I understand I am being desperately vain and self-centered, Princess; so you may think it your duty to take me to task for it. But it is only because I have always been such a dreadful black sheep among all the other Camp Fire girls. Then I suppose it is also because we have been separated so long. Pretty soon I’ll have to go back to the work-a-day, critical old world where nobody really cares a thing about me and where ‘my career,’ as Mollie calls it, has scarcely begun. But please don’t make me do all the talking, Betty, it is so unlike me and I can see that Sylvia thinks I am saying far too much.” Here Polly’s apparently endless stream of conversation was interrupted by a fit of coughing, which took all the color from her cheeks, brought there by the morning’s excitement, and left her huddled up among her pillows pale and breathless, with Sylvia’s light blue eyes staring at her with a somewhat enigmatic expression.
Betty smiled, however, pulling at one of the long braids of black hair with some severity. Last night it had seemed to her that Polly O’Neill was quite the most wonderful person in the world and that she could never feel exactly the same toward her, but must surely treat her with entirely new reverence and respect. Yet here she was, just as absurd and childish as ever and pleading for compliments as a child for sweets. No one could treat Polly O’Neill with great respect, though love her one must to the end of the chapter. She had a thousand faults, yet Betty knew that vanity was not one of them. It was simply because of her affection for her friends that she wished to find them pleased with her. In her heart of hearts no one was humbler than Polly. Betty at least understood that her ambition would never leave her satisfied with one success.
“But I was thinking of you, my ridiculous Polly!” Betty answered finally. “I regret to state, however, that I was not for the moment dwelling on your great and glorious career. Naturally no other Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girl may ever hope to aspire so high. I was wondering whether your mother allowed you to wander around by yourself last winter, and, if she did, how you ever managed to take proper care of yourself.”
“Dear me, hasn’t mother told you? Why of course I had a chaperon, child! Mollie, please ring the bell for me. She is a dear and is dreadfully anxious to meet all of you,” Polly explained. “But Sylvia took care of me too—would you mind not staring at me quite so hard all the time, Sylvia? I know I am better looking behind the footlights,” Polly now urged almost plaintively, for her younger sister was making her decidedly nervous by her continued scrutiny. “Betty, even you will hardly place me at the head of the theatrical profession at present,” she continued. “Though I am quite green with jealousy, I must tell you that Sylvia Wharton has stood at the head of her class in medicine, male and female, during this entire year and is confidently expected to come out first in her final examinations. I am abominably afraid that Sylvia may develop into a more distinguished Camp Fire girl in the end than I ever shall.”
There was no further opportunity at present for further personal discussion, for at this instant a tall, dark-haired woman with somewhat timid manners entered the room, where she stood hesitating, glancing from one girl’s face to the other.
“You know Sylvia, Mrs. Martins, so this is Mollie, whom you may recognize as being a good-looking likeness of me,” Polly began. “Of course this third person is necessarily Betty Ashton.”
From her place on the bed Sylvia had smiled her greeting, but Mollie and Betty of course got up at once and walked forward to shake hands with the newcomer.
Then unexpectedly and to Betty’s immense surprise, she found both of her hands immediately clasped in an ardent embrace by the stranger, while the woman gazed at her with her lips trembling and the tears streaming unchecked down her face.
“How shall I ever thank you or make you understand?” she said passionately. “All my life long I can never repay what you have done for me, but at least I shall never forget it.”