Margaret Vandercook

“ But by this time Miss Adams had begun to have a faint suspicion of what might be at the end of her companion's confession. For in the past two weeks since Polly's, Betty's and Esther's visit to the German forest, she too had become interested in some of its consequences. Yet she answered with entire truthfulness:
"Why, of course, Polly child, I like foreign men. Why should not one? It is absurd and prejudiced to like or dislike a person because of his nationality; it is the man's own character that counts." ”

“ Sounds rather glorious, doesn't it, Esther, fame and fortune all ready and waiting to drop at your feet? What a wonderful thing it is to be born into this world with a great talent and how it must make you look down on us poor mortals who have to grind and grind for just a bare existence. I'll be proud some day to say that I have had the honor of knowing you. ”

“ The girl's cheeks first flushed hotly and then she felt herself growing pale and self-possessed. Never in her life had she had a more important demand made upon her dignity and good sense. For she must not show any kind of ill-feeling. Thank goodness that she was able to give the only kind of reply that could carry any kind of weight or conviction to her companion and that she could say it with all truthfulness. For never had Betty Ashton felt less affection for any friend she had ever had than she did at this instant for the young nobleman. ”

“ In the hall, a few feet from the music room door, she encountered Polly herself, with her eyes shining and her face aglow with the beauty and fragrance of the April afternoon. And before she could slip past her Polly's arms were about her, holding her fast, while she demanded, "Whatever has happened to make you so white and miserable, Mollie Mavourneen? Are you ill? If anyone has been unkind to you——"
But Mollie could only shake her head. "Don't be absurd; there is nothing the matter. Billy Webster is here waiting to see you." ”

“ How wonderful to be able to accept fame and wealth in so simple a spirit, and what an object lesson for erratic Polly! Yet some benefit must Miss Adams have received from her friend, for surely she was looking years younger since her arrival in the German forests and so rested that she might soon be able to go back to her work with renewed talent. Think of being rested by being in Polly O'Neill's society! How surprised Polly's mother and Mollie would be by this information! And unconsciously Betty began smiling into the lovely face now bending over hers. ”

“ Betty now began quietly. "But suppose that the bullet which you fired so carelessly had killed my sister. Would you still have expected us to make the same answer? Of course we are just as much intruders upon your property as if we were men instead of American girls. But I presume that when you fired, thinking that we might be poachers, you would have been indifferent had you wounded one of us. For I believe in Germany it is the fashion for the soldiers who are intended for the defense of their country to have little respect for the lives of their countrymen." ”

“ Away from the possibility of being interrupted Esther stopped, putting her hand on her companion's arm.
She did not look like her usual self; her face was flooded with color and her shyness and reserve for the moment seemed swept away.
"You were not fair to me just now," she declared. "You had not the right to tell me you cared for me without asking me what my feeling was for you. Why does everybody in the world think that because I have a talent I have to sacrifice my whole life to it? I love my music, but I don't wish to be an opera singer. I hate the kind of existence it forces one to lead. ”

“ However, the recent visitor was so much in the habit of going frequently to the Wharton home that he did not feel in any sense a stranger there. Besides, had he not spied the familiar scarlet coat and hat on a chair outside the music room, where no one but Polly would have placed them? And was it not like her to be sitting in the semi-darkness with the shutters of four big windows tightly closed, playing pensively and none too well on the piano, when the rest of the world was out of doors? ”

“ Betty sat perfectly still during his explanation, with her hands clasped tightly together, showing white against the blue folds of her dress. In her whole life she had never felt so astounded, so completely overwhelmed, and in truth so angry. How could any man coolly say to her that he was willing to marry her in spite of the smallness of her fortune, plainly insinuating at the same moment that unless she had had the good luck to come into her unexpected inheritance she should never have received the honor at all. ”

“ For it was wonderfully kind of this famous lady to have forgotten herself so completely that she felt as deep a concern over Betty Ashton as though she had known her all her life.
"It was Betty herself who told me that young Count von Reuter had been brought up with the idea that he must marry a wealthy girl. Don't you suppose that she understands that anything else is impossible for him?" she asked. "The family is deeply in debt and even if the young man had the faintest knowledge of any kind of work it would be regarded as a disgrace for him to engage in it. ”

“ After Betty and her mother had climbed into the carriage, Anthony Graham accompanying them, and Betty had waved her hand in farewell, Esther, who was standing on the porch watching them depart, suddenly recalled Richard Ashton's half-jesting wish that their sister Betty were not quite so pretty. And this afternoon for the first time Esther believed that she agreed with him. It was absurd to send a girl looking like the Princess did at this present moment into a young man's home with the hope that he would cease to feel an interest in her. ”

“ Wharton kissed Polly good night. "Have faith in me, dear, for I have understood the ambition and the heart-burning you have suffered better than you dreamed. I shall go to see Miss Adams again tomorrow. If you must try your wings some day, perhaps there could be no better beginning than that you should learn to know intimately one woman who has fought through most of the difficulties of one of the hardest professions in the world and has earned for herself the right kind of fame and fortune." ”

“ Polly O'Neill almost gasped aloud. Of course every one of her friends had appreciated how much Esther had improved in appearance in the past two years, but it was hardly credible that she could look and behave like this, a girl brought up in an orphan asylum with no friends and no opportunities for so long a time! Well, one should understand that into each life certain wonderful hours may come when one seems to transcend one's self. And tonight such an hour had come to Esther. ”

“ Curiously enough, as he strode along he was recalling the story of Siegfried and Brunhilde which he had repeated to the three girls at Polly's request. And the words of Siegfried's song came back to his mind. This was not just an idle coincidence. The Germans are a far more sentimental and music-loving race of people than we can fully understand. And from the hour when Carl von Reuter had first seen Betty, the beauty of her gold-red hair had suddenly made him think of his small boy dream of this best-loved heroine in all the old German legends. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All their lives had they not been having wonderfully good times together? And now—well, for one thing, Betty knew perfectly that her brother was feeling uneasy over her friendship with Lieutenant von Reuter and had not hesitated in telling her so, expressing his own disapproval of any further intimacy between them. And assuredly she had failed in giving him any satisfaction in return. For Betty had made no clearer revelation of her feeling toward the young foreigner to her brother than she had to Polly O'Neill. ”

“ She had been happy enough in these last two years, in spite of missing Betty Ashton almost every hour, and had come to like and admire her stepfather immensely. Nevertheless there had remained a slight shadow between herself and her mother, a misapprehension so intangible that Polly herself did not realize it, although Mrs. Wharton did.
"I suppose you are not sleepy, dear, because you are sitting here thinking that never in the whole world was there ever a mother so narrow and so dictatorial as I am," Mrs. Wharton began. ”

“ Then Dick swung around, facing his sister. "Look here, Betty," he began more angrily than she had often heard him speak. "Has it ever occurred to you that you may all be forcing Esther into a life for which she is not fitted, which will never make her happy? Of course there is no denying her talent; her voice is wonderful and grows more so each day. But she is intensely shy. She hates notoriety and strange people—everything that a musical life must mean. I don't think that you ought to insist upon her singing at this special concert if she does not wish it. ”

“ I don't think I have any special talent and Esther Crippen is so talented we think she is almost a genius. I wish you could hear her sing, but she is too afraid of you yet. Nevertheless Esther does not want to be famous one bit and Betty and I don't even dare mention the word 'career' before her. I am sure she would much rather marry some day and have babies and sing to her husband and to them, or perhaps in a church where no one would think much about her. For she does love her music for itself. ”

“ Betty Ashton sighed, "I am so happy over being in the country once more with nothing to do but to do nothing. I was dead tired of all those people at the pension, of Fritz and Franz and all the rest of them. It is lovely to be alone here in the German forests——"
Then unexpectedly Betty Ashton straightened up, looking about her in every possible direction in a puzzled fashion while hurriedly arranging her hair. ”

“ Betty was holding her big flowered hat pressed close against her white dress, her lips were scarlet and her face so pale that her gray eyes looked almost smoke-colored. The wind and the long walk had loosened her hair until it was curling and blowing about her forehead like tiny red-gold clouds. Honestly no young man could have remained angry with her for any great length of time. ”

“ You have worked for your own living and ours; and you were willing enough to have Sylvia, who is younger than I am and who will be very rich some day, go away and study to become a trained nurse, just because she believed it her calling. Yet because I want to learn to act, why the whole stage and everything connected with it is anathema. You do not even like Miss Margaret Adams as much as you would if she were in some other kind of work. Oh, of course I appreciate that people used to feel that no woman could be good and be on the stage, but no sensible person thinks that nowadays. ”

“ From twilight until almost midnight Dick Ashton, the other two young men, Polly and Esther and a number of people from the village of Waldheim searched the surrounding country for Betty Ashton. It seemed utterly incredible that she could not be found! She was not a child; she was almost a woman and could not have been lured away by strangers. But why if she were lost did she not make some sign? There were several signals learned in her Camp Fire days, which Polly and Esther would assuredly have understood. ”

“ Making a tremendous effort to attain her usual dignity, Betty opened wide her gray eyes, stared, tried to get up out of her chair, and then finding her feet tangled in the blue shawl, stumbled and would have fallen except for the newcomer's outstretched arm.
Yet even when he had restored her to her usual equilibrium she did not immediately recognize their visitor, although she found herself looking up into a pair of clear hazel eyes and at the strong, clean outline of a typical American face. The young man must have been about twenty-three or four years old. ”