A Cosmopolitan Company
Sitting opposite Betty at the dinner table were the two German youths to
whom Dick most objected. And yet they were totally unlike both in
appearance and position. For one of them was apparently a humble person,
with long light hair hanging in poetic fashion below his shirt collar, a
big nose and small, hungry, light-blue eyes that seemed always to be
swimming in a mist of embarrassment. He was a clerk in a bank and
occupied the smallest room on the highest floor of the pension. So it
would have been natural enough to suppose from his manner and behavior
that he was of plebeian origin. But exactly the opposite was the case.
For the landlady, Mrs. Hohler, who was herself an impoverished
gentlewoman, had confided to Mrs. Ashton that the strange youth was in
reality of noble birth. He had an uncle who was a count, and though
this uncle had one son, the nephew Frederick stood second in the line of
succession. To Richard Ashton, however, this added nothing to the young
man's charms, nor did it make him the less provoked over Frederick von
Reuter's attitude toward Betty. Nevertheless he rather preferred
Frederick, who seemed utterly without brains, to her second admirer,
Franz. For Franz was dark and aggressive and had an extremely rich
father, a merchant in Hamburg. Also Franz hoped to be able to purchase a
commission in the German army, so that already he was assuming the
dictatorial, disagreeable manner for which many German officers are
unpleasantly distinguished.
However, neither young man had ever done anything in the least offensive
either to Betty or to any member of her family, so that Dick Ashton's
feeling was largely prejudice. And although Esther shared his point of
view, Mrs. Ashton was somewhat flattered at the amount of admiration
that Betty's beauty had excited ever since their arrival in Europe. As
for Betty herself, she gave the whole question very little attention.
All her life she had been accustomed to attention. Now and then her two
suitors amused her and at other times she was bored by them.
Notwithstanding she did not find it disagreeable to be able to tease her
serious-minded brother. Moreover, the widow with her two daughters,
about whom Betty and her mother had been making guesses for several
years, continued making her home at the pension, and without a shadow of
a doubt one of the girls regarded Dick with especial favor.
So tonight Betty, who had not yet entirely recovered from her
irritation, was unusually gracious to the two young Germans. She even
lingered downstairs in the small, overcrowded parlor after dinner with
her mother, allowing Dick and Esther, who were not so friendly with the
other boarders, to go up alone to their private sitting room.
"Fritz and Franz," as Betty's adorers were called, although Herr von
Reuter and Herr Schmidt were their proper titles, were regarded with a
good deal of quiet amusement by their fellow boarders. While this filled
the autocratic soul of Franz with a variety of suppressed emotions, the
gentle Fritz seemed totally unaware of it. He was content to sit
silently on one side of the _schoenes Fraeulein_, even when she devoted
the greater part of her attention to his rival. This evening, without
openly flinching, he overheard her accepting with her mother's approval
an invitation from the wealthy Franz for both of them to attend a
performance at the Royal Opera House the next evening. Then, although
Frederick's eyes grew mistier and his figure more dejected in
consequence, he did not leave the parlor until Betty and her mother had
gone up stairs. Late into the night, however, had anyone been in the
German youth's neighborhood, strains of exquisitely melancholy music
might have been heard drifting forth from a fifth floor back room. It
was the music of the oboe.
Even after Betty Ashton had seen her mother in bed, helping her undress
for the night, she did not immediately join Esther and Dick, although
Mrs. Ashton had asked her to explain to them that she was not well
enough to remain up any longer. Instead Betty went first into her own
bedroom and there re-read the two letters which she carried in her
pocket. For if Dick and Esther were of so much the same opinion in
regard to her sister's refusal to sing in public, it was best that they
be allowed to discuss the matter without interruption from her. For
although she had promised not to speak of it again to her sister, Betty
felt that it would be impossible for her to disguise how she actually
felt. It was wicked of Esther, utterly foolish and unreasonable, to
intend surrendering to her own shyness and lack of self-confidence, as
with Dick's abetting she evidently intended doing. Why, Esther might
have a truly great future! Professor Hecksher had assured Mrs. Ashton
that she only required time, training and more self-confidence. For,
although when Esther was finally under the sway of her music, she was
able to throw her whole force and fervor into it, in the beginning of
any performance she was often awkward and shy, alarming her audience
with the impression that she might break down. Professor Hecksher had
even suggested that Esther's voice might be beautiful enough for grand
opera when she grew older and had more experience.
With this last thought still in mind, Betty finally returned to the
sitting room to spend the rest of the evening with her brother and
sister. Often she had thought of how curious it was that she could speak
of Dick and Esther in this fashion when they bore not the slightest
relation to each other!
She found them sitting on opposite sides of a small table, a complete
silence pervading the room, although neither one of them was reading.
Esther's face was flushed and Dick's a little pale. As Dick rose to give
his chair to the newcomer, Esther spoke:
"Please don't go, Dr. Ashton," she said. And Betty wondered idly why
Esther should suppose that Dick intended leaving the room. More often
than not he spent his evenings at home with them. "I only want to tell
you, Betty dear," she continued, "that you were quite right this
afternoon in saying that I was wrong in refusing this chance to sing at
Professor Hecksher's concert. Of course I am not going to give up my
work now, when I have been struggling and struggling to learn even the
little bit I know. Then if I never sing in public how am I ever to earn
that fortune which I have promised to bestow on you, Princess?"
Esther laughed, but Betty frowned with an expression unusual to her.
"I don't want you to keep on with your singing, Esther, for my sake,"
she protested. "Mother and I are accustomed now to being poor and don't
mind it. So if there is anything else you would prefer to do with your
life, please don't waste a thought on me."
Esther shook her head reproachfully. "Don't be silly and don't be cross,
Princess," she pleaded. "You know perfectly well that I can no more help
thinking about you than I can help breathing. But so far as my keeping
on with my music is concerned, I can't see that I shall ever have the
right not to do that. So I am going to make the biggest effort I
possibly can at the concert, and then if I fail, why at least I shall
have been true to 'the Law of the Fire.'"
At this Betty's face softened, but Dick Ashton marched abruptly out of
the room.
Neither of the two girls, though far away from their old Camp Fire
circle now for two years, had ever forgotten its purposes and teaching.
So often when they were lonely the three Wohelo candles were lighted and
the old ceremony followed, usually ending by Esther's singing a Camp
Fire song.
Tonight Betty walked over to a kind of shrine or shelf which they had
erected in one corner of their room. German houses have queer stoves and
no fireplaces. There she lighted three tall white candles. The long
northern twilight was fading and the room had become almost dark.
A moment after, Betty came and sat down on a stool at Esther's feet.
"I had a letter from Polly today," she began. "She and Miss Adams have
landed and are in England. They want to join us later if----if----"
"If what, Betty?" Esther demanded. "Surely you and Polly are not to be
disappointed in being with each other!"
"Well, it is just this that I have been dying to tell you ever since
you came home," Betty protested, her words now running over each other
in her effort to tell all her story at once. "Polly wrote that Miss
Adams would love to come and spend a part of the summer near us if we
were only in some place in the country. But she is too worn out from her
work last winter to feel that she can endure the city for any length of
time. And you know mother and I have been getting pretty tired of Berlin
ourselves lately, since the warm weather has come and you and Dick are
away so much of the day. So this morning while you were out I got one of
the maids to go with me and we went for miles into the country until we
came to an enchanting place, all forests and brooks, near the village of
Waldheim. I can't tell you all that happened to me or the queer
experience I had, only that I found a delightful place where we may
live. It is near enough for you and Dick to come back and forth into
town. And it is so still and cool with such wonderful green hills behind
it that somehow it made me think of Sunrise Mountain and our cabin and
the girls and--" But in a sudden wave of homesickness Betty's voice
failed and she dropped her face in her hands.
Esther's own voice was unsteady. "Then we will move out to this spot at
once, Betty. And don't you ever dare tell me that I am not to think of
you in connection with my music, when I realize how much you have given
up for me. Oh, yes, I know you have enjoyed Europe and Berlin and all of
our interesting experiences. Yet somehow I don't believe that you will
ever be so fond of any place in the world as you are of your old home in
Woodford. You see that is the way I comfort myself and Dr. Ashton about
your new foreign admirers. You wouldn't, Betty, ever seriously care for
anyone who lives in Europe, would you?" Esther asked so anxiously that
her sister laughed, refusing to make a reply.