Disillusion
For an hour before dinner Peggy remained alone in her tent, Bettina
having seen that she was comfortable, had then gone away.
She was annoyed at finding herself so stiff and sore and for some reason
so oddly depressed. For Peggy was not as accustomed to depression as most
girls, being too fond of outdoor life and not given to introspection. But
it was natural enough that the nervous shock, as well as the physical
strain of her recent experience, should tell on her more as the hours
passed than at the beginning.
Ralph and Terry Benton had gone home at once to their hotel on the return
of the Camp Fire party to camp.
Through dinner Peggy sat quietly between her mother and Dan, not talking
very much.
From the other end of the table Howard Brent watched her furtively
whenever he had the opportunity. He was not happy over what he was
intending to do, although from his point of view it was the only fair
thing. Peggy ought not to be deceived by a pretense of friendship into
giving her own sincere affection in return.
Several times the young man had thought of confiding in Bettina Graham
and asking her to undertake the task of enlightening Peggy in his stead.
Bettina, Howard realized, did not like Ralph Marshall any better than he
did. But, afterwards, he had put this thought away from him, feeling
that, as an actual witness to the wager between Ralph and Terry, his
telling of the story would be more convincing.
As soon as they had gotten up from the table Peggy joined their only
outside guest that evening. Together they walked away from the others.
But they did not go very far, as it was almost dark and turning a good
deal cooler.
Peggy had put on a golden yellow sweater and, with her hair so closely
bound about her head and her hands in her pockets, she had again the
slightly boyish appearance characteristic of her.
But Howard Brent did not see this. To him she looked very young and sweet
and ardent, with a lack both of vanity and self-consciousness which set
her apart from a good many girls, but only made her more attractive to
him.
“Can’t we find a place and sit down? You can’t be feeling fit enough for
much of a walk,” Howard suggested.
At first Peggy shook her head, declaring she was all right, but later
they went to a favorite spot near the foot of the hill and not far from
the small lake. This was a favorite Camp Fire place, since it was near
enough to have the rest of the Camp Fire party in sight and yet far
enough away for confidences.
Peggy was not particularly interested in what Howard Brent had to say to
her. He had seemed to be in the act of confiding something or other
whenever they had met recently. But she had not considered deeply what
the confidence could be, and really since he had asked her to give him a
few minutes alone, she had not thought of the matter at all. She was much
too tired.
But Peggy was always friendly and willing to listen when her friends
wished to talk to her.
She sat now on an overturned log with Howard Brent on the ground beside
her and facing her.
There was not much light except from the big camp fire many yards off.
The pine trees and the hill made a rather gloomy background, and the
stars were just struggling to show through the dusk.
“That was a pretty close shave you had this afternoon, Miss Peggy,”
Howard began. It was awkward—this beginning of an awkward conversation,
but as well one way as another.
Peggy nodded. “Let’s don’t talk about it tonight, if you don’t mind. It
is silly, I know, but the more I think about the accident the more
nervous I become. Why, I seem to be more afraid now than I actually was
when I was hanging over that wretched precipice. I suppose, I was too
paralyzed with terror then to realize what had happened. I just kept
thinking that I was going to hold on to that tree and to Ralph, and that
even if I died I wouldn’t let go. But now I keep having a vision of Ralph
and myself sliding down forever and ever, with nothing to stop us. It
would have been pretty awful, wouldn’t it?”
Peggy tried to laugh but the effort was faint-hearted.
Howard Brent frowned.
“It would have been about the most horrible thing I can imagine,” he
answered gravely and with just the right amount of steadying sympathy in
his voice. “As far as you are concerned I simply refuse to think of it.
And, even though I don’t like Marshall, there isn’t any human being I
dislike enough to care to contemplate such a fate overtaking him.”
Peggy’s lips parted and she flushed a little.
“Why don’t you like Ralph?” she asked quietly, but without any show of
anger. “I have seen that you did not like him and I have been wondering
about it lately. You see, Bettina Graham feels the same way and usually I
have great respect for Bettina’s judgment. But I think she is mistaken
about Ralph. You see, I have known him for several years, but not very
intimately. He has been coming to our place in New Hampshire for a part
of his holidays whenever he has liked, as his father and mine are great
friends. Ralph and I have always been friendly enough, but he has never
paid any particular attention to me until lately. I suppose I always
seemed pretty young to him and a kind of tomboy. I really am one, you
know, even if I am nearly grown. So, now, it seems awfully good of him to
be interested in me, and I like him very much. That is why I think it is
funny you and Bettina don’t like him. I know he wasn’t a good student at
college and can’t make up his mind what kind of work he wishes to
undertake. But there is time enough for him to find out later on.”
“Marshall is a cad,” Howard Brent interrupted. He had not intended to
speak so abruptly, nor to show so much anger, but Peggy’s defense annoyed
him.
However, she did not contradict him, nor reveal any of the petulance at
being overruled, which most people would have expressed.
Instead, she looked at her companion with the clear, level glance he was
beginning to know fairly well.
“That is a pretty hard thing to say about a human being, Mr. Brent.
Sometimes I think it is perhaps the cruelest thing anybody can ever say
about another,” she repeated slowly. “You see it really means everything.
A man or a woman who is a cad is capable of almost any dishonor. And,
worst of all, a cad does not even know when he is dishonorable.”
“Yes,” Howard Brent repeated. “I expect that is a pretty good definition
of a cad. You may not think Marshall so bad as all that, but
unfortunately I do.” He stopped a moment, his skin tanned from the
Arizona winds and suns reddening faintly.
No matter how valiantly he had approached the moment of his confidence to
Peggy Webster, the actual telling was to be no more agreeable then he had
conceived it.
At this instant he hesitated.
“I think you owe it to Ralph to tell me why you think he is a cad,” she
declared.
Peggy’s hands were clasped quietly in her lap and she was leaning
forward, looking with earnestness at her companion. But she did not
appear disturbed. She was sorry that he had so unfortunate a point of
view about Ralph, but she did not feel in the least danger of being
convinced by his opinion. For Peggy’s points of view were her own.
“Oh, it is pretty hard to tell,” Howard went on, “and you may not think I
ought to tell you. Somehow it does seem impertinent of me to dare speak
of it. But I just can’t stand your being influenced by Ralph Marshall’s
attentions to you. The truth is about ten days or two weeks ago I
overheard him making a bet with Terry Benton. He insisted that he could
influence you to care for him as easily and in the same way that other
girls do by paying you attention. He bet Benton a hundred dollars.”
Howard Brent’s face stiffened. The thing sounded even uglier in the
telling than when it had occurred, and he had not intended that it
should.
But Peggy merely stared at him incredulously.
“It must have been a joke!” she exclaimed.
Howard Brent shook his head.
“Well, even if it were a joke, it strikes me as being of a not very
well-bred kind. I didn’t know how you might feel concerning it, but I
felt that you ought to know. If you wish to continue friends with
Marshall, now that you know, why of course it is not my affair. Perhaps
girls are all alike!” Howard concluded.
Peggy was still looking at him, surprised, but not overwhelmed and
apparently not entirely convinced.
“Somehow making a bet of that kind sounds so stupid,” she argued—not so
much with her companion as with the impressions struggling for first
place in her own mind. “It isn’t that I doubt what you have told me, Mr.
Brent, only that I think you have made a mistake. Why should Ralph care
enough one way or the other whether I like him? I am not a very important
person.”
Howard Brent got up. “If you would like confirmation of my story you can
speak to Terry Benton,” he announced, looking decidedly angry.
“Personally, I am sorry I spoke to you of it.”
But Peggy had also gotten up and now put her hand on her companion’s arm.
“No; you are not sorry,” she returned. “Of course, I don’t want to speak
of what you have told me to Terry Benton. But I would like to ask Ralph.
Will you tell him to come over to see me in the morning, if he is well
enough.”
And Peggy walked back with Howard Brent to say good night to her mother
and aunt, serenely talking of other things.