“Oh, but my work was not so valuable as all that, Mrs. Graham, you are mistaken. Most of my poetry was the veriest trash. Editors and friends were of the same opinion. Good-by, I will come in again in a day or so, if you will allow me.”
The following instant the young man was gone.
Startled and troubled by his swift departure, making an unexpected movement behind her screen, Gill beheld the screen pitch forward and stood facing Mrs. Graham, who had swung around at the unexpected sound.
“You have been in hiding and listening to what Mr. Drain and I were saying to each other, one of the Sunrise Camp Fire girls! I am afraid I do not understand. There was nothing in our conversation you might not have heard openly, had you cared to join us.”
There was more surprise than reproach in Mrs. Graham’s manner and voice.
Blushing hotly, Mary Gilchrist felt unable to offer a defense. What defense had she to offer?
“I had no thought of listening, not at first, Mrs. Graham. In order not to be seen I hid myself for a moment and then when you came into the room I did not wish to interrupt you.”
Even to her own ears Gill did not feel that her explanation really explained. Therefore she could scarcely resent the slight look of disdain on her companion’s face, as she answered:
“You are not a child and under the circumstances I think might have met the situation in a less undignified fashion. As Mrs. Burton is not well I shall not trouble her by speaking of this because I am afraid she would be a good deal displeased.”
The first snow of the season was falling.
Outside the night was transcendently lovely, the hills covered with white blankets, the trees, surprised at the first winter breath, shaking crumpled leaves of faded gold or bronze to be buried under the snow. On the lake in front of Tahawus cabin there was a light covering of ice, making a bed for the snowflakes.
Overhead the moon shone down upon the winter silence of the woods.
Inside the large cabin the Camp Fire girls were seated about the fire in ceremonial fashion, the Council meeting having just ended. On the mantel the candles were dying, although there was no other light in the room save their flickering flames and the light of the fire.
“Well, good-night, I’ll leave you to your final talk, not because I desire it, but because I seem to be under orders,” Mrs. Burton protested, rising from her usual position in the center of the circle.
A few feet away Mrs. Graham stood waiting for her, and a moment later they had disappeared arm in arm.
Afterwards there was a short silence broken at last by Sally Ashton.
“I wonder why our own Camp Fire club has never produced so devoted a friendship as Tante and Aunt Betty have enjoyed so many years.”
“Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,And in their death they were not divided;They were swifter than eagles,They were stronger than lions.”
“Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
And in their death they were not divided;
They were swifter than eagles,
They were stronger than lions.”
“Forgive my quoting,” Bettina Graham murmured, “but as we were to talk of friendship to-night after our regular meeting, those lines have been in my mind all day. I like Vera’s idea that we choose a subject of conversation at our Camp Fire meetings, once the actual business is over.”
At this instant Vera Lageroff was glancing out the window; purposely the blinds had been left up so as not to shut out the beauty of the night.
She turned now and looked from one girl to the other.
“Is it true what Sally has just said?” she inquired. “Have we no friendships in our own Camp Fire circle as deep and ardent and with the promise of continuing as Mrs. Burton’s and Mrs. Graham’s has for so many years?”
“Oh, Sally is always making amazing speeches! I thought we were all extremely fond of one another. In fact, Vera, perhaps you and I have more things in common because of our work together in France. I don’t believe I shall ever be so content anywhere else,” Alice Ashton remonstrated.
At one of the outermost ends of the semicircle, close up to the fire, Sally was seated. At this moment she wore a frown between her level brows, but not because she objected to her sister’s statement, which she scarcely had heard, but because she was pursuing her own idea and her mind did not work swiftly.
“Oh, of course I know we are friends after a fashion,” Sally returned, “but I suppose I was thinking of the David and Jonathan kind of friendship, something big and wonderful and everlasting. I know I have never had anything approaching a great intimacy with any one of you girls in the years we have been together in our Camp Fire club. Gerry and I were extremely friendly, nothing more. After she married Felix we soon ceased even writing to each other.”
A moment Sally leaned her chin in her hand.
“In spite of our Sunrise Camp Fire, I believe I have been more intimate with Dan Webster, and he has been a closer, warmer friend to me than any one of you girls. Yet I have not seen much of him since I was a small girl, save the summer in California and for a little while in Paris after the close of the war.”
“Well, I think I should not care to make such a confession, Sally Ashton. Our Camp Fire organization was created partly to teach us the value of friendship among girls, and not only friendship but the ability to live together and work together. I consider we have accomplished this with enough success to be proud,” Alice Ashton argued.
The silence was half thoughtful, half antagonistic.
“I by no means agree with Sally. However, I can speak only for myself,” Bettina Graham interposed. “The friendships I have had in our Camp Fire club are the deepest in my life. I hardly dare allow myself to think of Peggy Webster’s marriage, which is not many months away. Besides, I do not wish to be personal, I suppose none of us do, yet, in spite of Sally’s unfaith, I am sure there are other intimate friendships among us. Moreover, what our ideal really should be, is not what Sally suggests, beautiful and inspiring as the story of David and Jonathan. Our intimacy should extend through all our Camp Fire club and we should care for one another almost equally.”
In the wide semi-circle, one of the girls had been unusually silent during the evening, indeed had never spoken unless a question were directly addressed to her.
At this instant she looked closely at Bettina Graham with a peculiar expression in which there was appeal and defiance.
“You are an idealist, Bettina, and the type of idealist who demands the impossible. Human beings can not care for one another in the same degree. It is against the law of nature itself. We can be loyal and interested in every member of our Camp Fire group, yet we cannot care for each one alike. You yourself are unable to, for no one has taken Peggy Webster’s place with you, and perhaps no one of us ever shall.”
Half shyly the girls glanced from one to the other when Mary Gilchrist had ceased speaking. Gill dropped her eyes so that their gaze appeared concentrated upon her hands which she held folded together in her lap.
The fact that Gill for many months had made every effort to fill Peggy’s place in Bettina’s friendship was well known to every one of the other girls, except perchance to Bettina herself. Yet if at first Bettina had seemed to welcome the other girl’s admiration and in a measure to return her affection, of late she had kept apart from her as much as possible. Bettina was not unkind, only her manner was cold and reserved. More openly Mrs. Graham betrayed less liking for Mary Gilchrist than any one of the group of Camp Fire girls.
However, as Marguerite Arnot had come from Paris to live for a time with Mrs. Graham and Bettina, it was but natural that at present they should show a special interest in her.
At this moment, as Bettina made no reply to Mary Gilchrist’s implied invitation, Sally interposed with characteristic coolness.
“Oh, I appreciate that I always have been more of an outsider than any other member of our Sunrise Camp Fire. Don’t think I am complaining; I realize that I am colder or more selfish and that I have fewer intimacies. But, Vera,” Sally’s large golden brown eyes caught those of the other girl, who plainly had been thinking of something else, “Vera, to-night, during our discussion of friendship, are you thinking of one of us, or of Billy Webster? Was he not more truly your friend than any member of our Camp Fire?”
“Sally!” came the shocked exclamation from several of the girls at the same instant.
However, Vera Lagerloff’s long eyes, with their odd foreign look, met Sally’s bravely.
“There is no reason why Sally should not speak of Billy Webster. Please do not think I ever forget him. Yes, Sally, Billy was the best friend I ever had or hope to have. Yet his death in California[2]has not left me less ready to give my friendship to our Camp Fire. Indeed, I sometimes feel it is only through the Camp Fire and our work in France that I have been able to accept Billy’s passing away.”
“‘He that loseth his life shall gain it,’” Bettina quoted softly.
In the midst of the pause, feeling that her introduction of Billy Webster’s memory had made their discussion of friendship more sorrowful than she had intended, and conscious that Alice and Bettina were frowning upon her with varying degrees of severity, Sally turned her gaze from the firefight and her group of friends.
At the instant her attention was attracted by a whirr of snow against the window. It was as if an errant gust of wind had tossed great handfuls against the pane.
There was a noise outside, a little scuffling, uncertain noise.
Sally looked more closely, and as she looked her eyes widened and her red lips parted. The color faded slowly from her fire-warmed cheeks.
The next instant she was on her feet.
“I saw a face outside the window,” she exclaimed. “And one I have seen before!”
Fifteen minutes later the big living-room in the winter cabin at Half Moon Lake was deserted, the discussion on friendship having ended abruptly before it was well begun.
On the mantel the candles representing work, health and love had ceased to glow. There were only a few sparks left to smoulder amid the ashes of the log fire.
No one of the other girls had seen a vision at the window save Sally Ashton, and therefore believed that she had been mistaken. Some animal may have wandered out of the deep woods because of the storm and been attracted by the lights inside the cabin.
Yet the spell was broken and bed appeared the happiest solution.
To the Sunrise Camp Fire girls the closing in of winter about Tahawus cabin brought a new experience of life. Never in the many seasons spent together under varying conditions had they been so thrown upon their own resources for happiness and growth!
Of the outside world of companionship and stimulation, they had no one and nothing upon which they might depend, and this following two eventful years in Europe during the close and in the months after the great war.
Yet they had been told what they must expect, the quiet, the loneliness, the shut-in-ness of their existence.
Discovering that her health made it unwise to attempt returning to the stage during the winter, Mrs. Burton anticipated spending the winter alone in the Adirondacks save for occasional visits from her husband and Aunt Patricia, her sister and possibly her friend, Betty Graham.
However, Miss Patricia Lord had been first to decry an arrangement of this character, protesting that since Polly O’Neill Burton appeared unable to look after herself when she wasnotill, what could one expect of her under other conditions! Personally she had no idea of permitting her to make further trouble for her husband and friends. This was of course Miss Patricia’s fashion of confessing that nothing could separate her from the individual she loved best in the world, so long as her care, devotion and wealth could be of service.
Without Mrs. Burton’s knowledge Captain Burton and Miss Patricia made a journey to the Adirondacks, where they secured the lease of Tahawus cabin for a year with the privilege of a longer term, and here, a few weeks later, Mrs. Burton found herself established under Miss Patricia’s guardianship, her husband being forced to return to his work in Washington.
The maid who accompanied them Miss Patricia soon dismissed, announcing that she gave more trouble than assistance. And, although regretting her loss, seeing that the girl herself was lonely and unhappy and unable to live in peace with Miss Patricia, Mrs. Burton felt obliged to consent. Later she made a number of efforts to secure another maid (Marie, who had lived with her so many years, having been left behind in France), but up to the present time no one had been discovered agreeable to Miss Patricia.
Annoyed and unhappy over the amount of work Miss Patricia insisted upon undertaking, Mrs. Burton found her protests and efforts toward aid both set aside. Moreover, as rest was essential to her recovery, she dared not undertake heavy tasks.
During the latter part of the summer and the early fall, therefore, she and Miss Patricia lived alone at the cabin, although for various reasons neither of them particularly content.
Miss Patricia’s anxiety revealed itself in an increasing sternness and solicitude which left her charge small opportunity for peace.
Mrs. Burton, who was not seriously ill so long as she was resting and in a proper environment, oftentimes found herself lonely and restless, and ashamed of her discontent.
She was surrounded with every comfort and a good deal of luxury. Her room, twenty feet square, had four large windows facing the south and west; the plastered walls were painted a pale yellow with curtains of a deeper shade. Upholstered in yellow silk with half a dozen yellow and brown silk curtains, was the couch Miss Patricia had ordered from New York to be in keeping with the room. Supplies of magazines and books were sent weekly from town, letters arrived in generous number, occasionally a visitor appeared from one of the hotels or cottages a few miles off, but oftentimes was sent away unseen by Mrs. Burton, Aunt Patricia concluding that she were better left alone if the visitor happened to be not a friend but an acquaintance merely desiring to do homage to a famous woman.
Fortunately Miss Patricia looked with favor upon the physician who made weekly calls upon his patient. Miss Lord had secured a cabin in this particular neighborhood in order that the younger woman might be under his care.
One afternoon during the first week in September, Miss Patricia and Mrs. Burton were sitting in her bed-room between five and six o’clock. The twilight was beginning to close gently in so that a single lamp was lighted on a table which stood near Mrs. Burton’s couch. Lying upon the couch, she was holding a newspaper open in her hand, but at the moment was not reading.
A few feet away Miss Patricia sat grimly hemming dish towels.
Neither had spoken in the last ten minutes, not since Dr. Larimer, after an hour’s visit, had driven away.
“You are an extremely entertaining companion, Polly. Do you realize you scarcely have spoken to me all day, and yet you seemed to find a great deal to discuss with Dr. Larimer; perhaps because he is a man and I am only a woman.”
Swiftly Mrs. Burton dropped the paper which had been hiding her face.
“I am so sorry, dear, to have been so stupid; I have been reading since Dr. Larimer’s visit. But it is unkind of you to say I preferred talking to Dr. Larimer for such a reason, when you know what I wanted to discuss with him.”
“Yes, and his answer was exactly what I anticipated,” Miss Patricia answered severely, although her eyes were now searching the younger woman’s face. “Polly, I desire you to be truthful, even when the truth appears less complimentary to me. In the last few minutes you have not read a single line. I have been watching you and——”
The paper slid to the floor as Mrs. Burton sat up clasping her arms about her knees. Her corded yellow silk gown with a soft fall of lace about her throat had been put on in honor of the doctor’s call; her black hair was loosely coiled on top of her head, her cheeks too brightly flushed, her blue eyes less clear than usual.
“Come and sit beside me, Aunt Patricia, please do as I want to make a confession. It is true I have not been reading these last few minutes because a few moments ago I read the announcement of a brilliant new play produced in New York City last week and I was envious and rebellious. Of course I really expected to have Dr. Larimer declare that I must remain all winter in the mountains and yet I must have hoped he would allow me to return to town after a few more months. I am sorry of course, but really, Aunt Patricia, you must not bury yourself here with me, when I am such a burden besides being a stupid companion.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Polly, if you can avoid it,” was Miss Patricia’s reply. Yet she came and seated herself on the couch beside the younger woman, and by and by her arm was about her.
“See here, my child,” she announced a few moments later, “the truth is, I am neither lonely nor dissatisfied, butyouare. I am never unhappy when I am with you. However, that is neither here nor there. Naturally you need other companionship than an excessively disagreeable old woman. Your husband cannot be with you this winter, his work makes it impossible. I have been thinking for several days of an idea which I discussed with the doctor this afternoon after his conversation with you. Why not have your own Camp Fire girls to spend the winter at the cabin with you? You are accustomed to them and they would keep you interested and able to give less time to thinking of yourself. Dr. Larimer has no objection; says you will grow stronger as soon as you are in a more cheerful frame of mind. Would you like to have the girls, dear, because if so, in the last ten moments before I reproached you for not speaking, I had been planning a letter to each one of the girls which I shall write to-night, once you are asleep.”
“I am afraid they won’t care to join us here, Aunt Patricia. The winter will be so long and cold and at present the Camp Fire girls are in their own homes. You must not on my account ask them to come to us; we shall be happy alone, except now and then when I am especially tiresome.”
However, at the mere suggestion Mrs. Burton’s face had flushed, her eyes were no longer clouded and a bit of her old animation had returned.
“Our invitation to the Sunrise Camp Fire girls shall not imply a favor to us should they care to accept. I shall also tell them what they are to expect,” Miss Patricia added. “If they elect to spend a winter in the Adirondack forest, it will be of benefit to their health as well as to yours. Moreover, do not believe that I am issuing this invitation solely on your account, Polly. More than I dreamed possible I am missing the Camp Fire girls myself, particularly Vera and Alice, who are more sensible than the others.”
Later in the same evening, while Mrs. Burton lay half asleep on her couch, seated not far away Miss Patricia Lord wrote her letters of invitation. She kept her word; the letters mentioned the conditions the girls would be forced to meet, the long cold, the quiet days and nights and the fact that they could count on but little society or entertainment save what they could create among themselves. However, the cabin was comfortable and the surroundings beautiful. In only one line did Miss Patricia betray the fact that she believed their Camp Fire guardian’s health might be improved by the companionship of the group of girls who had meant so much to her in the past years.
Yet it may have been this line that represented the necessary influence, or merely that the girls enjoyed the novelty of a winter in the North woods.
Whatever the reason, October found them living together in their accustomed fashion and now October had passed and November and it was the first week of December.
So far, according to the woodsmen, the winter had been a remarkably open one.
One Friday afternoon, soon after luncheon, Mary Gilchrist came out of the cabin alone. A short time before Mrs. Burton, Mrs. Graham and Marguerite Arnot had gone for a drive, the rough little pony they had been using earlier in the season was now transferred from the carriage to a sleigh.
Ordinarily the Camp Fire guardian preferred the girls not to go any distance away from Tahawus cabin alone. So, as she had found it difficult to secure a companion, Gill had no thought of being outdoors more than an hour. Fresh air and exercise were essential to her health and happiness.
Sally, who first had been asked to accompany her, disliking the cold and none too fond of exercise, had pleaded the fact that she was busily engaged in preparing mincemeat for the approaching Christmas holidays and desired to go on with her task.
Bettina Graham, Gill preferred not to invite, believing that Bettina would surely decline. Alice Ashton and Vera were at work on their Christmas sewing and had a walk of several miles earlier in the day.
Promising Sally to bring back any winter berries or evergreens she might discover, at three o’clock Gill set forth alone. She was dressed in a short skirt and a gray fur coat and cap and was wearing snowshoes.
No snow had fallen for the past week and there was a hard layer of ice. The afternoon was cloudless and brilliant, the sky above the tree tops ravishingly blue.
A number of paths led away from the door of the cabin and Gill started along one which came down to the edge of the lake. As the lake was frozen over, she followed the line of the west shore for about half a mile, gliding along on the ice, her cheeks tingling, her eyes sparkling with the delight of the exercise and the exhilaration of the winter air. Not in some time had she felt so serene. These past few weeks for several reasons had been as uncomfortable ones as she ever cared to live through. Fortunately she always had believed in the value of an outdoor life to bring one to more cheerful views, even before her membership in the Camp Fire had emphasized this truth.
Tiring of the smooth surface of the lake, at length Gill climbed a snowdrift to enter a balsam forest which seemed to cover only a small area before it opened into a clearing beyond.
At no great distance from their own cabin, Gill had no recollection at the moment of this particular woods, perhaps because the winter afternoon gave it a new and strange aspect.
She recognized that the trees were white pine, many of them fifty feet in height with drooping long branches and five-fingered leaf bunches. Beneath the trees the ground, soft with the needles at other seasons, was to-day hard and white as a marble bed.
The arch of the trees formed a kind of natural temple with the opening beyond like a great rose window seen through the intervening space.
As she approached the end of the vista Gill heard a noise which at first startled and later on puzzled and troubled her. The noise was like the barking of a dog in distress. She stood still, called and whistled only to have the sound cease and then begin again with a deeper note of suffering.
Continuing her walk, but more slowly, Gill moved in the direction from which the barking came. In spite of what may have appeared to contradict this fact, actually she was more attached to animals than any one of the Camp Fire girls. Within another moment she had made a discovery. In a trap set by a hunter a small red fox had been caught but not killed. The barking to her ears had sounded like a dog’s.
Notwithstanding its pain and terror and fear of human beings, it seemed to Gill the little animal turned its red-brown eyes toward her with an expression of appeal.
Several seconds the girl stood frowning and puzzled, all her color flown and her lips trembling. Her own ignorance and cowardice formed the chief barrier. The little animal’s hind feet had been caught and nearly torn from the body, and yet she was unable to open the trap or to relieve the pain in any way, as she carried no weapon of any kind.
Gill set her teeth. Why not walk on or, a better plan, return to the warmth and friendliness of the big cabin. Of a sudden she felt lonely and vaguely uneasy here in the silent woods, the silence broken only by the cry of a small animal in pain. Yet the pain could not continue indefinitely, and in any event she could soon be out of sight and hearing.
Gill’s eyes dropped toward the ground. Immediately in her path she beheld a heavy stick, from which the snow had blown away, leaving it exposed to her gaze. A second only she hesitated, then picking it up discovered that the end was round and thick as a bludgeon. She knew that her eye and her aim were unswerving, yet the prospect of a moment’s swift action made her sick and faint.
The next Gill lifted her cudgel. With a quick stroke between the eyes that were fastened half fearfully, half trustfully upon her own, the little creature’s suffering was ended.
Afterwards, absurd as it seemed to her, Gill could not walk on at once. Instead she leaned against a nearby tree, closing her eyes to avoid the spectacle before her. She could hunt without especial emotion or regret, when her aim was steady and there was no suggestion of long pain or suffering afterwards. But to kill, as she had felt herself forced to do in the last few moments, had upset her in the most acute fashion.
Gill opened her eyes when she heard some one coming toward her.
“You seem to appear only when I am in the act of taking a life, Mr. Drain,” she exclaimed with poorly concealed bitterness, allowing her state of mind to find expression in the tone of her voice. “I am sorry to have you a witness to what I have just done and yet I felt it was unavoidable.”
“You have only accomplished what I have been trying to find courage to do this last half hour, Miss Gilchrist. But you do look used up. My little cabin is not an eighth of a mile away, won’t you come in and rest for a moment? I am sure your friends will not object. I am fairly intimate with most of them except you. Somehow we never seem to meet when I am at Tahawus cabin.”
The little pine house had only two rooms, one a small bed-room, the other serving as kitchen, dining-room and living-room. As there was no furnace and a wood fire would afford insufficient heat, an old-fashioned stove extended its stove pipe up the fireplace chimney.
This stove, packed tight with small chunks of wood, was now red hot and on top a kettle was pouring forth a thin stream of steam.
Allan Drain kneeled down.
“You’ll allow me to take off your snowshoes so you can be more comfortable? I envy you your skill in being able to manage them as I have been struggling for several weeks without success. Please don’t mind the small amount of snow you have brought into the room. I am not a particular housekeeper.”
Gill glanced about the room.
“I am not so sure. It seems to me you have arranged your room in a satisfactory and at the same time a picturesque fashion.”
“Oh, my belongings are few and simple after the grandeur of your cabin. I only brought a bed and a table and a chair and some books along with me. Since, I have been lucky enough to get hold of a few possessions left behind in the North woods by fellows who once were in pretty much the same fix I am. I have made the rest of the furniture myself from the wood I bought at a lumber camp not far off. See that book shelf to the left of the mantle; it was given me by a backwoods preacher, an old man who says it once belonged to Robert Louis Stevenson. You know Stevenson spent a winter in the Adirondacks for his health, don’t you? He and my old woodsman, who was a young fellow then, became friends.”
Gill nodded, but not so impressed as her companion had expected and hoped.
“Yes, I heard Mrs. Burton and Bettina Graham talking of the famous men and women who have lived in the Adirondack forests. Besides Stevenson there was a ‘Philosopher’s Camp’ with Emerson and James Russell Lowell and Professor Agassiz as members. Perhaps they may be an inspiration to you, but I cannot say I feel any deep interest. I told you I was not in the least literary and that I cared for the outdoors and not for books.”
Whether or not she intended this, there was a slightly contemptuous note in the girl’s voice.
Her companion, having removed her snowshoes, rose quickly with his face slightly flushed.
“You’ll have a cup of tea with me. The water is boiling so I can have it ready in a few minutes. It will warm you after your walk.”
As Gill nodded acquiescence, quickly and deftly as a girl Allan Drain set about his preparations.
His tea service consisted of a brown earthenware teapot, two cups and saucers, a cheap little pitcher and a silver sugar bowl of rare beauty, evidently an heirloom.
He had placed on the table a pot of gooseberry jam and now undertook to make the toast by opening his stove door and toasting the bread at the end of a long fork.
Offering no assistance, Gill sat watching, glancing sometimes at her host and as often at his surroundings.
Truly he had revealed ingenuity and taste in his arrangements, in spite of the scarcity and poverty of his furnishings. In the first place, the room was clean, the floor swept, the books and furniture dusted. On the walls were several unframed sketches and photographs made by amateur artists, pictures of the North woods in summer or autumn beauty. Fastened alongside were the skins of a raccoon and a beaver; on the floor, although somewhat the worse for wear, a large bearskin rug. There were two chairs and a table of crude but not ugly workmanship. Gill discovered herself enthroned in the solitary chair her host had brought with him for his lonely winter in the forest.
“I should think you would have preferred to be at a hotel or a hospital for the winter if you are not well,” she volunteered a few moments later when her host had placed her chair in front of one of his tables where his little feast was spread.
In spite of the fact that she was enjoying her tea, Gill found conversation difficult with an individual whose tastes and point of view were so unlike her own.
“I should think you would be desperately lonely here; you see it is different with us, there are so many of us and we are accustomed to being together.”
As Allan Drain lifted the teapot his long, slender hand shook slightly.
“Why, yes, I am often lonely,” he agreed. “It would be absurd for me to deny it. I live in this fashion rather than in a hotel or boarding house because it is much cheaper. My people have no money to spare and the uncle who has been paying for my education as a surgeon is annoyed at my break-down. He declares that if I were less antagonistic to my work I would never have gone to pieces. In fact, he thinks I am enjoying myself living alone in the woods with an opportunity to write poetry and dream, which is all he believes I care for, and he is not so far from right. I know you will have a contempt for me, but I tried my best to make up my mind to do what you managed to accomplish in a few seconds, relieve a little animal from pain. If I had not the nerve or the courage to be of help to an animal, what do you think of my chance of being of service to human beings?”
“I don’t think you will be ofany useat all,” Gill answered abruptly, and then it was her turn to flush, not because it troubled her that she may have wounded her companion, but because she had been uncomfortably conscious of the abruptness and awkwardness of her manner ever since her interview with Mrs. Graham. This was only a fresh instance of her lack of poise and tact, which seemed so conspicuous in Mrs. Graham and Bettina and which she so admired.
In spite of his courtesy and kindness at the present time, Gill was still convinced that she did not like Allan Drain and could never like him under any circumstances. The antagonism of their first meeting was only asleep and might wake again at any moment. Surely he must like her even less and with better reason. This afternoon he was only returning the hospitality he had received from other members of her own Camp Fire group.
When her host arose to replenish the fire Gill studied him closely. She was again positive that she did not care for his appearance. The yellow hair bronzed by the sun until it was nearly the color of a lion’s mane was worn too long, the figure was too slender and without sufficient force, the broad shoulders stooped. Yet perhaps he was not so effeminate in appearance as she originally had thought; the effect was rather due to delicacy.
Selfishly Gill uttered an inward breath of thankfulness, grateful for her own perfect health. Never had she felt more vigorous than to-day. Already she was growing tired of the little room and her host and anxious to return home.
“Well, I am sure you must find a great deal to keep you busy. Thank you for asking me to see your house. I must say good-by now and hurry back to the cabin. I am afraid it is growing late.”
Insisting on adjusting her own snowshoes, Gill stood at the door of the cabin with her back to the wall, smiling her farewell.
If her opinion of Allan Drain had not altered, his impression of her had slightly changed. This afternoon he did not so much dislike her half boyish appearance, the bobbed hair of a bright auburn color, the short nose and wide mouth with the white, firm teeth.
“I am sorry to have you go. I would walk back with you to Tahawus cabin with pleasure, but as I cannot manage my snowshoes without half a dozen headers I should only bore and delay you. Mrs. Graham and Mrs. Burton have been good enough to say I may come and share in your Christmas festivities. You are expecting many guests, aren’t you? The time is not far off and I shall try to keep so busy with my writing that the days will fly until then.”
“Do you mean that you are re-writing the verses that were lost at our cabin? I suppose they will be all the better for the added work,” Gill said hastily and in a tone of relief.
“Oh, no, not the poor old verses over again!” her companion returned. “I haven’t the courage, besides the fates must have known they were of no value and spared me the task of making away with them. I know it is ridiculous of me, but actually I am attempting to write a play. Mrs. Burton suggested the idea when we were talking together, although she is unaware of the fact. I know it will amount to nothing, so please keep my secret. I don’t know why I should have mentioned it to you, except that I have not seen another human being for two days. Well, good-by if you must go, and thank you for your visit. My best wishes to Tahawus cabin.”
Arrangements at Tahawus cabin were to be readjusted to meet the approach of Christmas guests, especially as the household was a strictly feminine one and a number of the guests were masculine.
Captain Burton would come up from Washington city to be with his wife for a few days, if not the entire length of the holiday.
Dan Webster with his mother and sister, Peggy, intended spending several weeks. Mrs. Webster had been unable to see her sister except for a few days since her return from Europe. Peggy Webster desired a rest and a farewell holiday with her group of Camp Fire girls before her marriage to Ralph Merritt. Therefore Ralph was to be a few days at the cabin but was not to remain the entire length of Peggy’s stay.
A third visitor, who had not the excuse of family relationship, was David Hale, a young American whom the Camp Fire girls met originally in France during the days of the Peace Conference.[3]
At that time he had been an especial friend of Bettina Graham’s and of the French girl, Marguerite Arnot, but later on both girls had lost sight of him, since Bettina only answered his letters occasionally and he had never written Marguerite.
However, he had returned to the United States with the closing of his work as secretary to a prominent member of the Peace Council and since had lived in Washington city.
Through a note of introduction from Bettina he had met her mother and father, and he and Mrs. Graham had become fast friends. Indeed, for a number of years Betty Graham had held a small court of young men about her in Washington, to whom she represented their ideal of what a gracious and beautiful woman should be. The situation always had amused her husband and friends, and Bettina openly declared that she cherished not the faintest hope of becoming her mother’s rival. As a matter of fact, she was not especially popular. So she was scarcely surprised, and not in the least annoyed, upon arriving at the conclusion that her mother had supplanted her in David Hale’s friendship. True, she had liked him in France, where they seemed to have many points of congeniality! But some little time had passed since then and other interests had interfered with her original impression. Nevertheless, she was glad to accept her mother’s suggestion that they ask David Hale to make one of their Christmas house party. The other girls had liked him, Miss Patricia had treated him with marked favor, and there was little doubt that he would add to everybody’s pleasure.
Now and then Bettina had wondered if Marguerite Arnot were homesick or regretted leaving her own country for the United States. True, she had said nothing to suggest this, yet she was as reserved as Bettina herself! Moreover, so far she had not in any way been thrown upon her own resources, part of her time in America she had spent with her mother and herself and the rest with Miss Patricia Lord. After the Camp Fire winter was over her future was less assured unless she should choose to remain in Washington city with them. Undoubtedly Marguerite had proved extremely useful to her mother with her pretty, quiet manner and her gift for sewing. Yet her position in their household had been a little difficult, due more to Marguerite’s shyness and her refusal to take part in the social life of Washington as their friend, which was the position she and her mother both wished Marguerite to accept.
So Bettina, recalling the fact that Marguerite Arnot had in her quiet fashion displayed pleasure in David Hale’s acquaintance, regarded this as another reason to be pleased with his appearance at the Christmas house party. During the weeks she and Marguerite were in Washington city, they had been able to see David Hale only once, as he chanced to be west at the time on official business.
Never before had Bettina thought of herself in the light of a matchmaker, so, secretly, she was amused by her present point of view. Marguerite Arnot and David Hale were her friends and one always possessed the right to wish happiness for one’s friends. Now the Adirondack woods in their winter cloak were like fairyland, so wonderful that Bettina, had she not been sure she was proof against romance, must have felt their romantic influence. She did feel their inspiration and their beauty every hour of the day. But Bettina had arranged a future for herself in which an ordinary romance played no part, and by ordinary romance she meant the eternal romance of youth.
Dr. and Mrs. Ashton, Alice’s and Sally’s parents, were to arrive from Boston, bringing with them a distant cousin, a youth of about nineteen or twenty whom neither girl had seen in a number of years.
One change in their household arrangements upon which the Camp Fire guardian and Mrs. Graham both insisted was that during the holiday season some one be secured to assist with the domestic work, else with so many additional people to be cared for, the girls would be worn out and have little time for pleasure.