The Camp Fire Girls Across the Seas

CHAPTER III

Farewells

Polly O'Neill was entertaining at a farewell reception. April had passed away and May and it was now the first week in June. In a few days more she would be sailing for Southampton with Miss Margaret Adams to be gone all summer. The party was not a large one, for Polly had preferred having only her most intimate friends together this afternoon.

So of course the old members of the Sunrise Hill Camp Fire Club were there and a few outside people, besides the group of young men who had always shared their good times.

Moreover, the past two years had given the old Camp Fire Club an entirely new distinction, since one of its girl members had recently married.

At this moment she was approaching Polly O'Neill, and Polly held out both hands in welcome, as she had not seen the newcomer since the return from her wedding journey. Edith Norton it was, who was dressed, as she had always hoped to be, in a costume that neither Betty nor Rose Dyer could have improved upon, a soft blue crêpe with a hat of the same color and a long feather curling about its brim. For Edith had confessed her fault to her employer soon after her difficulty in the last story and had been forgiven. And, as a good-by present to Betty Ashton, she had promised never to have anything more to do with the young man of whom her Camp Fire friends had disapproved. The result was that she had married one of the leading dry goods merchants in Woodford, and hard times and Edith were through with each other forever.

Now her cheeks were flushed with happiness instead of the color that she had used in the days before her membership in the Camp Fire Club, and her pretty light hair made a kind of halo about her face.

"Apoi-a-kimi," Polly smiled at her guest, "you have not forgotten our Indian name for you, have you, Mrs. Keating, now that you are the first of us to acquire an altogether new name?"

Edith shook her head with perhaps more feeling than she might have been expected to show and at the same time touching an enameled pin which she wore fastened on her dress she said: "I am a Camp Fire girl once and forever, no matter how old I may become! And I never needed or understood the value of our experiences together so much as I do now. Tell Betty for me, please, that I sometimes think it is to our Camp Fire Club that I owe even my husband. He could not possibly have liked me had he known me before those good old times. So since Betty brought me into the club and has stood by me always – "

With a smile Polly now made a pretense of putting her fingers to her ears; nevertheless she glanced around with a kind of challenging amusement at the half a dozen or more friends who were standing near, as she interrupted her visitor.

"Betty! Betty!" she exclaimed. "I have been wondering the greater part of this afternoon whether this is a farewell party to me or an opportunity to send messages to Betty Ashton." Purposely Polly waited until she was able to catch John Everett's eye, for he stood talking to Eleanor Meade only a few feet away. John pretended not to have heard her. He had only returned to Woodford for the week in order to see his father and sister, for he had graduated at Dartmouth some time before and was now in a broker's office in New York City. And already he was under the impression that he had attained the distinction of a New York millionaire and that his presence in Woodford was a unique experience for his former village acquaintances. So he was now being extremely kind to his sister Meg's old friends, although it was, of course, absurd for any one to presume that he had more than a passing, pleasant recollection of any girl whom he had ever known in Woodford.

All this that he was thinking Polly appreciated when she had watched the young man's face for less than half a moment. And as she had a reprehensible fondness for getting even with persons, she then registered a private vow to let Betty hear just how much John Everett had changed.

However, she had but scant time to devote to this resolution, for almost at the same instant another young man, excusing himself from his sister, walked toward her with an expression which was rarely anything except grave and reserved.

Polly spoke to him with especial pleasure. For the past two years had changed not only her attitude toward Anthony Graham, but that of a good many other persons in Woodford.

Two years can be made to count for a great deal at certain times in one's life and Anthony had made the past two do for him the work of four. He was no longer an office boy and student in Judge Maynard's office, for he had graduated at law and was now helping the old man with the simpler part of his practice. And because Judge Maynard was seventy and childless he had taken a liking to Anthony and had asked him to live in his home, for the sake of both his protection and his society. And this perhaps was a forward step for the young fellow which the people in the village appreciated even more than the boy's own efforts at self-improvement; for Judge Maynard was eccentric and wealthy and no one could foretell what might happen in the future.

Edith had moved away to make room for the newcomer, so that Polly and her guest stood apart from the others.

Anthony was as lean as ever, although it was the leanness of muscular strength, not weakness; his skin was dark and clear and his hazel eyes gazed at one frankly, almost too directly. One had the sensation that it might be difficult to conceal from him anything that he really wished to know.

"Miss Polly," he began rather humbly, "I wonder if you would be willing to do a favor for me?" He smiled, so that the lines about his mouth became less grave. "Oh, I have not forgotten that you did not altogether approve of Miss Betty's friendship for me when I came back to Woodford, and I do not blame you."

"It was not Betty's friendliness for you that I minded," Polly returned with a directness that was very often disconcerting.

The young man reddened and then laughed outright. "I thought it better to put it that way, but if you must have the truth, of course I know it was my liking for her to which you objected. But look here, Miss Polly, no one knew of my admiration except you. So I suppose you know also that every once in a while in these past two years Miss Betty has written me a letter – perhaps half a dozen in all. So now I want you to take her something from me. It does not amount to much, it is only a tiny package that won't require a great deal of room in your trunk. Still I have not the courage to send it her directly and yet I want her to know that I have never forgotten that what she did for me gave me my first start. I have improved a little in these past two years, don't you think? Am I quite so impossible as I used to be?"

Polly frowned in reply; but she reached forward for the small parcel that Anthony was extending toward her.

"Look here, Anthony," she protested, "for goodness sake don't make a mountain out of a molehill, as the old saying goes. Betty Ashton did not do anything more for you than she has done for dozens of other persons when she could afford it, not half as much. So please cease feeling any kind of obligation to her; she would hate it. And don't have any other feeling either. Goodness only knows how these past two years in foreign lands may have altered the Princess! Very probably she will even refuse to have anything to do with me, if ever Miss Adams and I do manage to arrive in Germany."

Polly ended her speech in this fashion with the intention of making it seem a trifle less impertinent. However, Anthony appeared not to have understood her. Nevertheless, having been trained in a difficult school in life perhaps he had the ability for not revealing his emotions on all occasions.

For Herr Crippen and Mrs. Crippen, Betty's father and stepmother, were at this moment trying to shake hands with him. Herr Crippen looked much more prosperous and happy since his marriage to the girls' first Camp Fire Guardian. He had now almost as many music pupils in Woodford as he had time to teach, while Miss McMurtry had lost every single angular curve that had once been supposed by the girls to proclaim her an old maid for life and as Mrs. Crippen was growing almost as stout and housewifely as a real German Frau.

In the interval after Anthony's desertion, as Mrs. and the Herr Professor had already spent some time in talking with her, Polly found herself alone.

She was a little tired and so glanced about her for a chair. Her mother and Mollie were both in the dining room as well as Sylvia, who had come home for a week to say farewell to her beloved step-sister. But before Polly could locate a chair for herself, she observed that two were being pushed toward her from opposite sides of the room. Therefore she waited, smiling, to find out which should arrive first. Then she sank down into the one that John Everett presented her, thanking Billy Webster for his, which had arrived a second too late.

Excitement always added to Polly O'Neill's beauty, and so this afternoon she was looking unusually pretty. As it was the month of June she wore a white organdie dress with a bunch of red roses pinned at her belt and one caught in the coiled braids of her dark hair.

She had been perfectly friendly with Billy, even more so than usual, since their April talk. For having her own way made Polly delightfully amiable to the whole world. Billy, however, had not responded to her friendliness. He was still deeply opposed to her going away with Miss Adams. And though he was doggedly determined to have his own will in the end, he seemed to have lost all his former interest and pleasure in being often at the Wharton home. For not only was Polly in what he considered a seventh heaven of selfish happiness at her mother's change of mind, but Mollie no longer treated him with her former intimacy. She was friendly and sweet-tempered, of course, but she never asked his advice about things as she once had, nor seemed to care to give him a great amount of her time. Instead she appeared to be as fond of Frank Wharton and as dependent upon him as though he had been in reality her own brother. And Frank having recently returned to Woodford to live, had gone into business with his father. Truly Billy felt that he had not deserved the situation in which he now found himself. Of course one might have expected anything from so uncertain a quantity as Polly, but to Mollie he had been truly attached and she had been to him like a little sister. So it was difficult to comprehend what had now come between them.

Billy had no special fancy for playing third person and remaining to talk to Polly and John Everett, so considering that both his chair and his presence were unnecessary, he moved off in the direction of the dining room.

Polly smiled up at her latest companion with two points of rather dangerous light at the back of her Irish blue eyes. Then she let her glance travel slowly from the tips of John Everett's patent leather shoes, along the immaculate expanse of his frock coat and fluted shirt, until finally it reached the crown of his well-brushed golden brown hair.

"It must be a wonderful feeling, John, to be so kind of – glorious!" Polly exclaimed, in a perfectly serious manner.

"Glorious," John frowned; "what do you mean?" He was an intelligent, capable fellow, but not especially quick.

"Oh, don't you feel that you are giving poor little Woodford a treat every now and then by allowing it the chance of beholding so perfect an imitation of a gentleman. I don't mean imitation, John, that does not sound polite of me. Of course I mean so perfect a picture. I have been feasting my eyes on you whenever I have had the opportunity all afternoon. For I want to tell Betty Ashton when I see her who is the most distinguished-looking person among us. And of course – "

John flushed, though he laughed good-naturedly. "What a horrid disposition you still have, Polly O'Neill. One would think that you were now old enough to make yourself agreeable to your superiors." He stooped, for whether by accident or design, the girl had dropped a small paste-board box on the floor.

"This is something or other that Anthony Graham is sending over to Betty Ashton," Polly explained with pretended carelessness. "I suppose you can remember Betty?"

But John Everett was at the present moment engaged in extracting a small pin from the lapel of his coat. "Don't be ridiculous, Polly, and don't impart your impressions of me to Betty, if you please. Just ask her if she will be good enough to accept this fraternity pin of mine in remembrance of old times."

CHAPTER IV

Unter den Linden

A tall girl with red hair and a fair skin, carrying a roll of music, was walking alone down the principal street in Berlin. She did not look like a foreigner and yet she must have been familiar with the sights of the city. For although the famous thoroughfare was crowded with people, some of them on foot, the greater number in carriages and automobiles, she paid them only a casual attention and finally found herself a seat on a bench under a tall linden tree near the monument of Frederick the Great. Here she sighed, allowing the discouragement which she had been trying to overcome for some little time to show in every line of her face and figure.

She was not handsome enough to attract attention for that reason, and she had too much personal dignity to suffer it under any circumstances. So now she seemed as much alone as if she had been in her own sitting room.

Only once was she startled out of the absorption of her own thoughts. And then there was a sudden noise near the palace of the Emperor; carriages and motor cars paused, crowding closer to the sidewalks; soldiers stood at attention, civilians lifted their hats. And a moment afterwards an automobile dashed past with a man on the back seat in a close fitting, military suit, with a light cape thrown back over one shoulder, his head slightly bowed and his arms folded across his chest. He had an iron-gray mustache, waxed until the ends stood out fiercely, dark, haughty eyes, and an intensely nervous manner. And on the doors of his swiftly moving car were the Imperial Arms of Germany.

The girl felt a curious little thrill of admiration and antagonism. For although she had seen him more than a dozen times before, the Kaiser Wilhelm could hardly pass so near to one without making an impression. And although the American girl was not in sympathy with many of his views, she could not escape the interest which his personality has excited throughout the civilized world.

But a moment after the street grew quiet once more and she returned to her own reflections.

In spite of her pallor she did not seem in the least unhealthy, only tired and down-hearted. For her eyes, though light in color, were clear and bright, and the lips of her large, firmly modeled mouth bright red. She wore a handsome and becoming gray cloth dress and a soft white blouse, her gray hat having a white feather stuck through a band of folded silk. The coolness and simplicity of her toilet was refreshing in the warmth of the late June day and a pleasant contrast to the brighter colors affected by the German Frauen and Fräulein.

Finally the girl opened her roll of music and taking out a sheet began slowly reading it over to herself. Then her dejection appeared to deepen, for eventually the tears rolled down her cheeks. She continued holding up her music in order to shield herself from observation. Even when she was disturbed by hearing some one sit down beside her on the bench, she did not dare turn her head.

But the figure deliberately moved closer and before she could protest had actually taken the sheet of paper out of her hands.

"Esther, my dear, what is the matter with you? Have you no home and no friends, that you have to shed your tears in the public streets?" a slightly amused though sympathetic voice demanded.

Naturally Esther started. But the next instant she was shaking her head reproachfully. "Dr. Ashton, however in the world did you manage to discover me?" she demanded. "I am resting here for the special pleasure of being miserable all by myself. For I knew if I went back to the pension Betty and your mother would find me out. And the worst of it is that neither one of them understands in the least why I am unhappy. Betty is really angry and I am afraid that Mrs. Ashton thinks I am stupid and ungrateful."

Instead of replying, Richard Ashton picked up Esther's hand and slipped it through his own arm. He looked a good deal older than his companion. For he was now a graduated physician with three years of added foreign experience, and besides his natural seriousness he wore the reserved, thoughtful air peculiar to his profession. So his present attitude toward Esther Crippen seemed that of an older friend.

"I don't know what you are talking about or what dark secret you seem to be trying to conceal," he returned. "All that I do know is that I have been sent out to find you and that you are please to come home with me. Betty and mother have been expecting you to return from your music lesson for an hour. And Betty is so in the habit of getting herself lost or of mixing up in some adventure where she does not belong, that she is convinced a like fate has overtaken you. Then I believe that something or other has happened which she has not confided to me, but which she is dying to tell you. There are times, Esther, when I wish that our sister, Betty, was not quite so pretty. I am always afraid that some day or other these German students, whom she seems to have for her friends, will be involved in a duel over her. And if that happens I shall very promptly send her home."

Dick and Esther had now left the broad, park-like square and had turned into a narrower side street adjoining it. Ordinarily any such suggestion concerning Betty would have aroused Esther's immediate interest and protest. However, whatever was now on her mind was troubling her too much for her to pay any real attention to what Dick had just said. So they walked on for another block in silence, until finally Esther spoke in her old timid, hesitating manner, quite unconsciously locking her hands together, as she had on that day, long ago, of her first meeting with Richard Ashton.

"I am sorry to be so stupid and unentertaining. It was good of you to come and look for me," she began apologetically. "I wish I could stop thinking of what troubles me, but somehow I can't. For Betty will insist on my doing a thing that I simply know I shall not be able to do. And I do hate having to argue."

They were still some distance from the German pension where Dick, his mother and sister and Esther were boarding, so the young man did not make haste to continue their conversation, as he and Esther knew each other too intimately to consider silences.

"Look here, Esther," Richard Ashton finally began, "you know that Betty considers me the worst old gray-beard and lecturer on earth. So I am going to be true to my reputation and lecture you. Why do you allow yourself to be so much influenced by Betty? Don't you realize every now and then that you are the older and that the Princess ought to come around to your way of thinking? Why don't you tell her this time that you are right and she is wrong and that you won't hear anything more on the subject that is worrying you."

Esther laughed, swerving suddenly to get a swift view of the earnest face of her companion. How often he had befriended her, ever since those first days of shy misery and rapture when she had made her original appearance in the Ashton home, little realizing then that the Betty whom she already adored was her own sister.

"I am not really afraid of the Princess, you know, Mr. Dick," she replied, laughing and using an odd, old-fashioned title that she had once given him. "The truth is that if you were able to guess what I have on my mind you might also disagree with me. Because in this particular instance there is a possibility that Betty may be right in her judgment and I in the wrong."

They had walked by this time a little distance beyond the crowded portion of the big city. Now the houses were private residences and boarding places. Finally they stopped before a tall yellow building, five stories in height, with red and yellow flowers growing in a narrow strip along its front. Before an open window on the third floor a girl could be seen sitting with a book in her lap. But she must have become at once aware of the presence of the young man and his companion, because the instant that Dr. Ashton's hand touched the door knob, she disappeared.

CHAPTER V

Changes

Dick Ashton's laughing wish that his sister Betty were a little less pretty was not so unreasonable as you might suppose, had you seen her on this particular late June afternoon as she ran down the narrow, ugly hall of the German pension to greet her brother and sister.

She had on a pale blue muslin dress open at the throat with a tiny frill of lace. Her red bronze hair had coppery tones in it as well as pure gold and was parted a little on one side and coiled up in the simplest fashion at the back of her head. The darkness of her lashes and the delicate lines of her brows gave the gray of her eyes a peculiar luster like the shine on old silk. And this afternoon her cheeks were the deep rose color that often accompanies this especial coloring.

She put one arm around Esther, drawing her into their sitting room, while Dick followed them. It was an odd room, a curious mixture of German and American taste and yet not unattractive. The ceiling was high, the furniture heavy and dark, and the walls covered with a flowered yellow paper. But the two girls had removed the paintings of unnatural flowers and fruits that once decorated them, and instead had hung up framed photographs of the famous pictures that had most pleased them in their visits to different art galleries. There was Franz Hals' "Smiling Cavalier" gazing down at them with irresistible camaraderie in his eyes which followed you with their smile no matter in what portion of the room you chanced to be. On an opposite wall hung a Rembrandt painting of an old woman, and further along the magical "Mona Lisa." In all the history of art there is no more fascinating story than that relating to this great picture by Leonardo da Vinci. For the woman who was the original of the picture was a great Italian princess whom many people adored because of her strange beauty. She had scores of lovers of noble blood and lowly, but no one is supposed to have understood the secret of her inscrutable smile, not even the artist who painted it. This picture was first the property of Italy and then carried away to hang for many years in the most celebrated room in the great gallery of the Louvre in Paris. From there it was stolen by an Italian workman, taken back into Italy and later restored to the French Government. But before Mona Lisa's return to her niche in the Louvre she made a kind of triumphal progress through the great cities of her former home, Rome, Florence and Venice. And in each place men, women and little children came flocking in thousands to pay their tribute to beauty. And so for those of us who think of beauty as a passing, an ephemeral thing, there is this lesson of its universal, its eternal quality. For the smile of one woman, dead these hundreds of years, yet fixed by genius on a square of canvas, can still stir the pulses of the world.