But Bettina did not see their Camp Fire guardian alone until late that coming afternoon.
On her dismissal she had found Peggy and Vera, and assisted them with the making and serving of the coffee. She had also scorched her cheeks, which were burning hot in any case, making a plate of toast. Then, after a frugal breakfast and just as the sun was rising over the new Sunrise Hill camp, the campers went back to bed.
And no one got up until about lunch time.
Polly did not come out of her tent all day.
However, just before dusk she sent for Bettina.
Sitting up in bed, Mrs. Richard Burton was looking rather more frail than the people who loved her would like to have seen. And Bettina was also worried by her appearance, although she did not know just what to say.
Of course, the fact of the matter was that Polly had been uncomfortable all day over what she thought was Bettina’s too intimate friendship with the young Indian, in whom she herself was interested. She knew that she did not understand Bettina’s disposition, and that she did not have her confidence. She was also afraid of her own ability as a satisfactory Camp Fire guardian. All this, beside the experience of the night, had made her ill and undeniably cross.
“In future, as a favor, Bettina, I must ask you to have nothing more to do with Tewa. The young man comes here to camp as a teacher—not to be a cavalier to any one of you girls. You are to have nothing more to do with him.”
Polly Burton spoke in the domineering tone which she often used when she was cross. She had been doing this ever since her girlhood and always in the old days it had offended Betty Aston, who was now Betty Graham and Bettina’s mother. It offended Bettina at the moment. No one had ever really ordered her to do this or that in her life—this was neither her mother nor her father’s method.
Besides, it struck Bettina as unfair to her and to the young man who had befriended her.