AN UNSPOKEN POSSIBILITY
The two friends were walking home from school together about ten days
later. They had both stayed until almost dusk engaged in different
pursuits.
Betty was doing some extra studying with Miss McMurtry, as she had
missed so much time and science was always her weakest point; while
Polly had been having an hour's quiet talk with her former elocution
teacher, Miss Adams. Probably she was the one person in Woodford,
excepting Betty, who sympathized in the least with Polly in her
escapade. Or if she did not exactly sympathize with her, she was sorry
for the retribution that she had brought upon herself. For Mrs.
Wharton had decreed that her daughter was not to leave Woodford again
and was not even to be permitted to study anything in the village with
the view of its being useful to her later in a stage career. The
subject was to be entirely tabooed until Polly reached twenty-one, when
if she were of the same mind, she might choose her own future. Of
course to an impatient nature three years and a few months over seemed
like an eternity, and except for Betty's sympathy and her frequent
talks with Miss Adams and the latter's accounts of her great cousin,
Margaret Adams, Polly believed existence would have been unendurable.
She was in such a state of excitement now over something which Miss
Adams had been recently telling her, that at first she hardly heard
what Betty was trying to say.
"I have her permission to tell you, Polly dear, because she wishes to
have your advice, as you have more imagination about getting out of
difficulties than the rest of us; but you have to promise first never
to mention it to anybody, not to a single other member of the Camp Fire
Club or to Rose or even Donna."
Polly laughed, putting her arm lightly across Betty Ashton's shoulder.
"What are you talking about, child?" she demanded. "I don't
particularly like that suggestion of my talent for getting out of
scrapes; but if the scrape has anything to do with Betty Ashton, then
all my talent is at her disposal, of course."
"But it has nothing to do with me, at least not in the way you mean,"
the other girl replied, too much in earnest to be amused even for the
moment. "It has to do with a girl whom you have never liked very much
and she has never liked you. But she has been my friend and I do care
for her. And moreover she is a member of our Sunrise Hill Camp Fire
Club and we promised to live up to Sylvia's motion."
"Edith Norton?" Polly queried. "She must be in trouble if she is
willing to confide in me."
But Betty's expression suddenly silenced her. Always Betty Ashton had
been the most popular among her special group of Camp Fire girls. At
first chiefly for her beauty, her wealth, the prominent position of her
family and for her own generosity and charm. More recently, however,
since the girl had met her own disasters so courageously, a new element
had come into her influence and the affection she inspired. It was a
quality that Polly with all her cleverness would never create, one of
steadfastness under fire. Perhaps it was one of the last
characteristics that one might have looked for in the early days of the
Princess. And yet it will always be found in truly aristocratic
natures. When life is flowing smoothly, when the days go by with no
special demands made upon them, these persons may have many little
weaknesses. Yet when the special occasion arises theirs is the
faithfulness and fortitude. So while Betty had neither the sound
judgment of Sylvia Wharton nor the brilliant fancy of Polly, it was to
her that the other girls usually made their first appeal in any dilemma
or distress.
At this moment if they had not been together on the street Polly would
have liked to embrace her. The cold air had brought Betty's color
back; she still wore the little lace cap under her old fur hat, but the
edging made a lovely frame for her face, and her hair was already
growing so that the curls showed underneath, like a baby's.
"Yes, it is Edith," Betty answered seriously. "And she is in a
difficulty that you could never have imagined of one of our Camp Fire
girls. You know she has been going a good deal with that man whom none
of us like until she thinks she is really in love with him. And it
seems that Edith believes that he does not care a great deal about her.
So she, poor thing, has been trying her best to make him care. She has
bought herself a lot of clothes that she cannot afford, for you know
she gets such a small salary at the shop where she works."
"Is that all?" Polly demanded. "It is awfully foolish of her, of
course, to be so extravagant, but it isn't such a dreadful crime. And
as I suppose she has charged what she got, she can just save up and pay
back her bills by degrees."
Betty shook her head. "Don't be a goose, dear. Edith can't charge
things in Woodford. She hasn't any credit in the shops like your
mother and mine have. She is only a poor girl working for her own
support, with her family not living here and with no position when they
were. No, you see she borrowed the money from the woman she was
working for without telling her. She meant to pay it back of course,
only, only----"
"You mean she stole it from her?" Polly exclaimed in a hushed tone.
This was a good deal worse than anything which she had anticipated.
She had always considered Edith Norton foolish and vain; but then
surely the Camp Fire had helped her, had given her the ideals and the
training that she had never learned at home. Betty was crying so
bitterly and so openly that Polly felt she must comfort her friend
first before criticising or attempting to suggest a solution to the
other girl's problem.
"But, dear, if you wish Edith's trouble kept a secret, you must not
weep over her, just as you get home," she protested. "Don't you know
that everybody in the house will be demanding to know what the matter
is at once, and the Professor can hardly be kept from weeping with you?
I can't think of anything to suggest to Edith except that she confess
what she has done and ask Madame to let her return the money by working
for it."
"I told her that, but she did not believe that she would be forgiven,"
Betty explained. "Oh, if I only had just a little of the money I used
to throw away! I don't mind being poor so much myself, Polly; it is
when I so want to do for other people."
"You don't have to tell me that, Princess," her friend replied quietly.
"But, dear, this time I am glad you have not the money. Because you
know it would not be right for you just to give Edith the money and
have her give it back without any one's knowing. At least, I don't
quite think so. And yet I am awfully sorry that Edith and I should
both in our different ways have broken our Camp Fire law. And I will
do anything I can think of to help her. Do you know, dear, how long
she has been in this difficulty?
"Oh, I think about two weeks," Betty answered. "But she only confided
in me yesterday. It seems that she has tried several ways of getting
the money and has attempted to borrow it. She thought maybe I could
lend it to her, and I may be able to later on, only I would have to
tell mother some reason why I needed twenty-five dollars all of a
sudden from our small supply."
"No, you must not. Maybe I may be able to help. Or we may persuade
Edith to confess. I believe she will when she thinks more about our
old Camp Fire teachings. Anyhow, as we are at home now, let us wait
and talk it all over again tonight after we get to bed. It is then, of
course, that I do my most brilliant thinking."
So with this in mind, obliterating all other thoughts at their hour of
retiring, for the first evening since their fright ten days before,
neither Polly nor Betty remembered the locking of their outside door
upon getting into bed.
And this time it was Polly O'Neill who was aroused first a short while
after midnight by the slow turning of their doorknob and then the sense
of an almost noiseless figure entering their bedroom.
Immediately she awoke Betty by suddenly calling her name aloud, and at
the same instant sprang out of bed, again touching the electric button
and flooding the room with revealing light.