“well, thank goodness our youthful guest has departed at last. i was fearful that he would stay so long we could not have our hour together before bedtime. it is a magical night; do you suppose it would do you any harm, polly, if for a little while we go outdoors? then perhaps we shall be safe from interruption. i am afraid i am selfish enough to want you to myself now and then, dear, as i used to in the old days.”
“nonsense, it was i who wanted you, and too often failed to secure you. you were the favorite then as you have been ever since. this evening, for instance, you so charmed the young poet that he completely ignored the girls. in fact, you flattered him as no one of the camp fire girls would have condescended to flatter. however, you doubtless have prepared your own punishment, for i am convinced he will expect you to read his poetry.
30
“suppose we do slip out of doors for half an hour. i will put on this old fur coat as a protection against the cold, and the night is divinely clear.”
a few moments later the two women, who were among the original group of camp fire girls, stole quietly out of the cabin and arm in arm walked down toward the shores of half moon lake.
“i wonder, betty, how long you will be able to endure the solitude of our winter woods? i trust until after the snow falls; it has been so long since we were together in any intimate way. yet i’m afraid you’ll soon be growing lonely and anxious for the society life you love and that loves you.”
31
“nonsense, polly! you will not be able to be rid of me so promptly. and why should i be lonely with you and my own bettina here? certainly i have seen but little of either of you in these past years when you have been living and working in europe. so long as my husband remains in the west and my son at college i shall stay with you until you, or more probably aunt patricia, drive me away. do you know, polly, actually i need to make my own daughter’s acquaintance, to earn her affection and confidence as you possess it. it is true, although i do not enjoy the confession, that i do seem to understand boys better than girls and more easily make friends with them. tony and i have always been more intimate than i have ever managed to be with bettina. the slim princess, as andrew calls her, has been her father’s daughter more than mine. polly dear, how have you managed to be so successful a camp fire guardian so many years? frankly, i did not think it was in you! you were more reserved as a girl, more self-centered than the rest of us, because of course you were a genius, dear, and that means one must lead a more introspective life. yet you have managed to be an artist and a wonderful camp fire guardian as well. how many different temperaments you have seen unfolded, how many girls you have helped through an infinite variety of experiences! i wonder if the other mothers are as jealous of you as i am?”
32
“don’t be ridiculous, betty,” mrs. burton answered, none too amiably, since as a matter of fact amiability was not one of her ruling traits of character. “i have simply had a good time with my sunrise camp fire girls, been as much of a friend to them as i have known how to be. and they have borne with my bad health and bad tempers with amazing sweetness and understanding. in truth, you realize, betty, that this winter in the adirondacks is not what i had hoped and planned for this winter. with all my heart i wished to go back to my stage work! i had discovered a wonderful new play and was intending to begin rehearsals as soon as i reached new york. then this abominable illness of mine returned while we were in ireland. i took a severe cold over there amid the irish mists. so between my husband and aunt patricia lord and half a dozen doctors, no choice was left me. the camp fire girls are here in the mountains with me for my consolation more than for their pleasure, i am afraid. we will have a shut-in winter together in this fairy land. i sometimes wonder what may happen to us after a time when the snows begin and this place is a great ice palace. but surely it is too lovely for me to complain! look, dear, the evening star is just going down beyond the farthest hill:
33
“thou fair-haired angel of the evening,
now while the sun rests on the mountains, light
thy bright torch of love—thy radiant crown
put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
smile on our loves; and, while thou drawest the
blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
on every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
in timely sleep. let thy west wind sleep on
the lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
and wash the dusk with silver. soon, full soon,
dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
and the lion glares through the dun forest.
the fleeces of our flock are covered with
thy sacred dew; protect them with thine influence.”
then was a brief silence; the woods were still at the moment, the two friends speechless and there was only the light lapping of the waters against the shore.
34
“polly o’neill burton, long ago i was told that sara bernhardt could make men and women shed tears simply by reciting the multiplication table or the alphabet. i believe you can accomplish the self-same result. i presume that you feel you have grown stale with these years of abandoning your art, yet i sincerely believe that when you return to the stage you will be the greater artist. no human being with your temperament, polly, can have passed through the emotional experiences of the years in europe and not be inspired by them. i am sorry for your present disappointment, sorry you must wait another year to produce the new play, yet when the time arrives i shall be prouder of you than ever!”
“you are a dear, betty. i hope you are a prophet as well, because sometimes i am afraid that my day as an artist is past. one so quickly is forgotten and i have been away from my audiences for so long a time. however, i don’t intend to be dismal. i am not permitted to be, as a matter of fact, by aunt patricia. at the mildest protest on my part, she is unmerciful; i suppose that is why i do my complaining to you, betty. was there ever such a character as aunt patricia? i believe she grows fiercer in manner and kinder in heart with each passing year. her reconstruction work in france was so remarkable that the french government wished to present her with a medal of honor, which aunt patricia was about to refuse with scant courtesy when i induced her to allow me to write the letter of thanks at the time she declined the offer. there are moments when she is so autocratic i feel i must rebel and yet i am utterly devoted to her and under eternal obligations.”
35
“so are we all, polly, since she saved your life in france and may be saving it again with her care of you this winter. so don’t behave like an unruly child. you do manage to keep absurdly young, polly. molly, your own twin sister, and i have confessed to each other that we feel ten years your senior. is it because you are a genius or because you have remained the guardian of the sunrise camp fire girls and been with girls so much that you continue one of them?”
36
“i decline to answer. remember, betty, it was you and not i who captured the young poet’s attention this evening. i wonder if he is to be our nearest neighbor during the winter? i trust not, for i believe he would be of small service should we get into a difficulty. we are more apt to be forced to look after him. by the way, betty, i am glad the william blake poem did not invoke a shiver in you. it struck me that the suggestion of the wolf raging wide through the dun forest was unpleasantly suggestive, although we are assured that the wolf has vanished from the adirondack mountains as surely as the indian braves and that only their ghosts haunt their beloved woods.”
again for a few moments there was a renewed silence, the two friends of many years with their arms entwined about each other continuing to walk up and down contemplating the exquisite landscape under the approaching shadow of the night.
nearly of the same height, polly o’neill burton, who in social life was mrs. richard burton, was far slenderer than her companion, giving her an effect of greater youth.
37
betty graham, who had been betty ashton in former days, had grown from a pretty girl into a rarely beautiful and charming woman, distinguished for her grace of manner and social gifts. she was more beautiful than her friend. even as a girl polly o’neill had never been beautiful in any conventional fashion. her face was long, her features slightly irregular, with a broad, low brow and delicate, pointed chin. she had a wealth of dusky black hair and amazing blue eyes of swiftly changing color and expression and a wide, mobile mouth.
once long ago betty ashton had said: “one never is aware of the fact that polly possesses any other features than her eyes and mouth. her eyes always hold your attention until she begins to speak and then the movement of her lips, the haunting quality of her voice absorb one.”
to-night the figure which moved beside her seemed to be thinner and frailer than at any time since her marriage.
38
trying miss patricia might be upon occasions, yet at present betty graham could only rejoice at the thought of her constant vigilance. equally devoted she and the camp fire girls might be, yet they possessed neither the wisdom nor the authority of miss patricia. she remembered that although pliable in small matters, in any question of her art polly o’neill had been singularly obstinate. had she not in her girlhood disappeared from her family and friends and in defiance of their wish devoted herself to her career?
at present would she remain shut up in the winter woods with the new play waiting to be produced and new york city only a few hours away?
“why don’t you study your new part, polly, while you are growing stronger? would it not help to keep you amused?”
mrs. burton shook her head.
39
“no, only make the waiting more trying. i have promised my husband and aunt patricia to devote this winter to my health. i shall keep my word, but beyond this winter i have made no promise. betty, did you hear a strange sound? i am very nervous to-night and seem often to hear voices in the wind and murmurings as if all the fairy folk were whispering together. no, i am not mad; remember, betty, how nearly i came to being born in ireland, where not to believe in fairies is to forswear one’s birthplace. besides, i often try to reproduce the sounds i hear in nature. it is a great training for one’s voice. and this aids one in acting. suppose we go back now to the cabin. i want to see that my camp fire girls are ready for bed. a narrow escape from a tragedy this afternoon and yet mary gilchrist, gill i prefer calling her, is usually the most sensible one of us. one’s guardian angel seems to take a holiday now and then, and yet gill’s saved her in the end. good gracious, here comes aunt patricia! i vainly hoped she would not discover that we were out of doors.”
through the darkness a tall, severe figure could be seen moving with long, masculine strides.
“polly o’neill, is this the fashion in which you endeavor to regain your health? i presume you go out into the night air because you know it is so particularly bad for you and in order to give additional trouble to the people who are compelled to care for you?”
“it is a warm, clear night, aunt patricia. besides, no one, as you say, is compelled to care for me. when i am so ill as to be especially troublesome i can send for a nurse. betty and i were just going indoors.”
40
“humph!” miss patricia grunted in a tone of doubt.
mrs. graham laughed, slipping her arm affectionately through that of miss patricia.
“we really were coming indoors. but look here, aunt patricia, if polly and the camp fire girls object to being treated as if they were young and in need of advice and sometimes of discipline, while i am with you, suppose you devote yourself to me. it would be delightful to be treated as if i were a girl again, instead of the mother of a grown-up son and daughter.”
“you have a lovable nature, betty graham, which i think your daughter, bettina, has in a measure inherited. polly o’neill burton, i regret being forced to speak of it, is a spoiled and ungrateful woman.”
mrs. burton, who had been walking a few feet apart from her companions, now flushed and laughed. catching up, she slipped her hand through miss patricia’s free arm, resting her head for an instant against the angular shoulder.
41
“i may be the one, but you know i am not the other, miss patricia lord! besides, i am as ashamed of you as i am of myself for being in such a bad temper.
“look at our cabin how beautiful it is! let us ask tahawus, the great cloud, to keep us under his shelter for the night. i hope the camp fire girls are safe in bed. sometimes, betty, i could wish that none of them need ever grow older.”
“a wish in which they would scarcely concur, polly. one wants the life adventure whatever it may be. besides, our camp fire builds for the future as well as for the present.”
having reached the veranda, bettina graham, hearing the voices outside, came to open the front door; wearing a heavy blue flannel wrapper over her blue pajamas, her bare feet were thrust into blue slippers and around her small head her hair was closely bound in yellow braids.
“i have been waiting to say good-night. of course i realized that any truants would be you and tante, mother.”
42
“bettina,” her mother replied irrelevantly, “you should have been called diana; your own name has never suited you in the least and it was absurd that you should have been named for me when you are so unlike me. since i have been watching you here in these woods——”
bettina and mrs. burton laughed and even aunt patricia smiled grimly.
“is it my present costume which recalls the famous huntress, mother, or is it that the woods are making you romantic? please remember that i do not enjoy being reminded that i am wholly unlike my beautiful mother. i too have wished for auburn hair—wine colored our young poet called it to-night, did he not?—and eyes like——?”
“go to bed, bettina. there is nothing of the goddess about you in manner or behavior at this moment.”
mrs. graham’s tone was half amused and half annoyed.
“nevertheless, you will receive the poems in the morning. gill and i really rescued the poet and deserve the attention,” bettina answered, as she ran away to bed, tall and slim, with a peculiar grace of movement which ever had been characteristic of her.
