Nevertheless Meg had always been more easily influenced than any other of the Camp Fire girls, hating to oppose the wishes of any one near to her heart. Her husband, Jack Emmet, was an intimate friend of her adored brother John. He and Meg made an attractive couple, for although Mr. Emmet was not handsome, he was tall and had a slender, correct figure and sharply cut features with light blue eyes and brown hair. Meg's costume was quite as beautiful as Betty's, a soft rose silk and chiffon, and her golden hair was fastened with a small rope of pearls.
"You are as lovely tonight as ever, Betty, and I know Anthony is proud of you," Meg whispered, holding her friend's hand for an instant. "Remember when you once believed that Anthony was falling in love with me? Silly child, he never thought of any one except you! But then he and I have always been special friends since he believed I helped him win you. I want to tell him how proud I feel of you both tonight."
As Meg moved away, Mollie's plump arm, which was only partly concealed by her glove, slipped inside her hostess's.
"It is nice we can have a few moments to ourselves before the ball begins," she remarked shyly, glancing toward her husband, who was for the moment talking with Jack Emmet. The two men did not like each other, but had been forced into conversation by Meg's moving off with Anthony.
Betty kissed her friend, quite forgetting the dignity of her position on the present occasion.
"Dear old Mollie, it is good of you to have come to help me tonight! I know you don't like this society business. How I wish we had Polly here with us! She promised to come if possible, but I had a telegram from her only this afternoon saying that she is almost on the other side of the continent. It was dated Denver, I believe."
The same look of affectionate incomprehension which she had often directed toward Polly, again crossed Mollie Webster's pretty face.
"It is just as impossible as ever to keep up with Polly," she explained half complainingly. "She has been acting through the West all summer, but promised to come home for a visit this autumn. Now she writes she won't be here for some time. Dear me, I do wish that Polly would marry and settle down. Of course I know it is wonderful for her to have become such a distinguished actress, but I never think she is very happy and I am always worrying over her."
Betty laughed and then looked serious. "Polly never will settle down, as you mean it, Mollie dear, even if she should marry," she argued, forgetting for the moment the other friends close about her and the evening's ordeal. For her thoughts had traveled away to Polly O'Neill, who was to her surprise still Polly O'Neill. For at one time she had certainly believed that Polly had intended marrying Richard Hunt, the actor, and just why their engagement had been broken no one had ever been told. Possibly it was because Polly had wished to devote herself entirely to her work. She had always said as a girl that marriage should never be allowed to interfere with her career, and certainly it had not. For the Polly who had made her first success some ten years before in the little Irish play was now one of the best known actresses in the United States. Indeed, she had succeeded to the position once held by Margaret Adams, since Margaret Adams had married and retired.
However, for the present there was no further opportunity for mutual confidences, since in the interval Faith Barton had appeared and with her the Governor's new secretary, besides a dozen other persons, most of them political friends, who were to assist in opening the Inaugural Ball.