“You, Peggy! Then you mean that you prefer to take Bettina’s view of the question, rather than mine; that you think she has a right to do as she likes, without respect to my judgment!”
Really, Polly’s tone expressed only surprise for the instant, as she was too amazed over Peggy’s lack of loyalty for any other emotion.
Peggy shook her head. “No, dear; it isn’t that, and you know I care for you more than anybody in the world, almost; but I don’t think you are being fair to Bettina. If she goes home alone, not only her own family but mine and all our friends who find out, will think she has done something dreadful. And she has not done anything dreadful so far as I can see. No one will ever know how I hate giving up our camping together, yet I feel I must go.”
“Very well, Peggy,” Mrs. Burton answered in a voice she had never used to the girl before. “Suppose we go back now to camp.”
CHAPTER XX
Understanding
Just at the door of Mrs. Burton’s tent Bettina stopped a moment.
“May I come in for a little, please, Tante; I have not told you everything,” she said under her breath, her face, which had been pale until this moment, flooding crimson.
But it was the first time for several weeks that Bettina had used the title by which she had always called Mrs. Burton when she was a little girl.
“Certainly,” Polly answered quietly, opening the flap of her curtain and entering, the two girls following, for Peggy seemed determined to have a part in each interview.
Her tent had been a parting gift from her husband and was an unusually comfortable one, which held a divan, a low table and a chair, beside the sleeping cots. There were Indian blankets on the floor for rugs.