"Nothing and no one in this world could ever persuade me, Betty dearest, that Anthony does not adore you," Polly then continued with convincing earnestness. "You see, he began when you were sixteen years old and he never knew that any other girl lived in the world. He does not know it now, for he never even glanced at a single one of us yesterday, if he could help it. But you see Princess, dear, you are a good deal spoiled. You always have been ever since you were a baby, by your family and all your friends. Even the Camp Fire Club used to look up to you and be more devoted to you than any one else. Esther has always been your slave and now your little French girl seems to feel about you just as Esther used to do. Really, Betty, I expect you need discipline."
Yet even as she spoke Betty's auburn hair glistened with such exquisite colors in the firelight that Polly stroked it softly with her slender fingers.
The Governor's wife was thinking too deeply to notice her.
"I wonder if things are my fault, Polly. I almost hope they are," she answered wistfully. "You see, it has seemed to me lately that Anthony has been dreadfully unreasonable. He won't do the things I ask him to and though he is too busy to be with me himself, he isn't willing for me to spend much time even with my oldest friends."
"Oh, ho!" whistled Polly softly. "What friends, for instance, Princess?"
"Oh, Meg Emmet and—John Everett. Isn't it absurd? But Anthony has always felt a prejudice against John ever since we were boys and girls together here in Woodford," Betty explained. "I don't care particularly for John now myself. He has grown kind of stupid and thinks too much about what he eats, but it would look utterly ridiculous of me to cut him for no reason except that Anthony is absurd."
Polly dug her chin deeper into the palm of her hand as she so often did in moments of abstraction.
"Seems like a little enough thing to do if Anthony wishes it and you could do it very gracefully you know, Princess dear," Polly replied. "Besides, I am not so sure Anthony has no reason for his prejudice. I never liked John Everett a cent myself when we were all young. He was always trying to lord it over the rest of us and pretend to be very rich and grand and superior. Besides, Betty Graham, I don't believe I should care to have a husband who would do every solitary thing I asked him to do. Somehow, I think I would like him to have a little judgment of his own now and then. So you really wish Anthony to do exactly as he is told. I wonder if your children are as obedient? But come along, dear, it is getting so late Mollie will be having fits about us. Fortunately you are a more sensible woman than I am. A perfectly obedient husband is about the last thing in this world I require. To what dreadful end would I bring him!"
But Betty did not stir from her stool even when her companion had crossed over the room and now stood holding out her long fur coat, waiting for her to put her arms inside it.
"Dear, if there is one thing I am more sure of at this moment than of anything else, it is that I am not so sensible a woman as Polly O'Neill. Though goodness knows I never could have believed it!" Betty whispered, laughing and yet profoundly in earnest. "It was a most excellent sermon and I mean to do my best to profit by it. Truly I have been behaving like a spoiled child for weeks. I know Anthony has a great many things that trouble him and I ought to have been more considerate. Somehow I expect this marriage is really more the girl's business than the man's. He has to make the living for the family in most cases and the Camp Fire taught us that home making was a girl's highest privilege."