Bettina had spoken, but all three of them knew it was the idea which had been in their Camp Fire guardian’s mind.
Sorry she was, of course, and perhaps bitterly disappointed, but the act appeared inevitable. There could not be misunderstanding and mutual antagonism between a Camp Fire guardian and one of her own group of girls, and particularly away from home and in the Camp Fire guardian’s charge.
“I am sorrier than I can say, Bettina,” Mrs. Burton added, more gently than she had yet spoken. “But I am afraid we don’t understand each other and, as you are not willing to trust my judgment rather than your own, why perhaps it is best. Only your mother will be grieved and angry and disappointed with both of us.”
And Polly Burton’s voice was suddenly full of tears. The thought of Bettina being Betty’s daughter and causing the first real trouble that had ever come between them in so many devoted years, filled her with sorrow and bitterness. After all, she had hoped to give Bettina a great deal of pleasure; this was the only possible reason for bringing her or any of the Camp Fire girls west, and had she asked a great deal in return?
And although Bettina heard her Camp Fire guardian’s reply in silence, she too felt as if she were in the midst of a wretched dream from which there seemed to be no way of awaking. The whole difficulty was such a matter of misunderstanding, so “much ado about nothing.” And her mother and father would be both disappointed and offended with her. They both loved and admired Mrs. Burton more than almost anyone in the world. It would not be easy for them to understand why their daughter should make so manifest a failure with her.
Clearly Bettina also realized that she was also forfeiting her position as a Camp Fire girl. Every effort might be made to conceal the reason for her being sent home, but the truth would inevitably become known, or, if not the truth, something more trying.
However, Bettina did not speak; it would not have been possible at the moment. She was saved from it by Peggy.
Peggy, who never had cried since she was a baby—about whom it was a joke in her family that she had not the usual feminine fountain of woe—now had her eyes full of tears and her lips shook.
“If Bettina has to go back home, I am going with her,” she replied firmly, although her voice was lower than usual.
Mrs. Burton looked at her in astonishment.