This last statement was possibly made with a double intention. Betty responded to it instantly.
“Surely, Polly, you must know that would not make the slightest difference,” she returned earnestly. And then the next instant, as if fearing that she might have betrayed herself: “But what in the world makes you think I am cherishing a secret, you absurd Polly? I suppose you have had to have something to think about these past two months, when you have spent so much time lying down. Well, when I see how you have improved I am quite willing to have been your victim.”
With a quick motion the other girl now managed to sit upright, piling her sofa cushions behind her. Her color was certainly sufficiently vivid at this instant. But indeed she was so improved in every way that one would hardly have known her for the Polly O’Neill of the past year’s trials and successes. Her figure was almost rounded, her chin far less pointed and all the lines of fatigue and nervous strain had vanished from her face. But Polly’s temper had not so materially changed!
“It isn’t worth while to accuse me of having tried to spy into your private affairs, Princess,” she replied haughtily. “But if you do feel that I have, then I ask your pardon for now and all times. I shall never be so offensive again.”
There followed a vast and complete human silence. Then Polly got up from her resting place and went and put her arm quietly about her friend.
“Princess, I would rather that the stars should fall or the world come to an end, than have you really angry with me,” she murmured. “But you know I did not mean to offend you by asking you to confide in me, don’t you? Anyway I promise never, never to ask you again. Here, let me have the Woodford paper, please. I believe Billy brought us the afternoon edition. I wonder if he and Mollie will be gone on their boating expedition for long? They must have been around the lake half a dozen times already.”
As though dismissing the subject of their past conversation entirely from her mind, Polly, resuming her hammock, now buried herself in the columns of the Woodford Gazette. Apparently she had not observed that no reply had been made either to her accusation or apology. She could see that Betty was not seriously angry, which was the main thing.
“Get out your embroidery, Princess, and let me read the news aloud to you;” she demanded next. “I love to watch you sew. It is not because you do it so particularly well, but because you always manage to look like a picture in a book. Funny thing, dear, why you have such a different appearance from the rest of us. Oh, I am not saying that probably other girls are not as pretty as you are, Mollie and Meg for instance. But you have a different look somehow. No wonder Angel thinks you are a fairy princess.”
But at this moment an unexpected choking sound, that seemed in some fashion to have come forth from Betty, interrupted the flow of her friend’s compliments.
“Please don’t, Polly,” she pleaded. “You know I love your Irish blarney most of the time beyond anything in this world. But now I want to tell you something. I have had a kind of a secret for over a year, but it is past now and I’m dreadfully sorry if you believe you find a change in me that you don’t like. I suppose sometimes I do feel rather blue simply because I am of so little account in the world. Please don’t think I am jealous, but you and Sylvia and Nan and Meg are all doing things and Esther and Edith and Eleanor are married and Mollie helps her mother with your big house. I believe Beatrice and Judith are both at college, though we have been separated from them for such a long time. So you see I am the only good-for-nothing in the old Sunrise Hill Camp Fire circle.”