Margaret Vandercook

“ You are the one person in the world whom I would rather not have brought into such a discussion, and to find that out is a part of my punishment. I wonder if you can believe, Peggy, how sorry and ashamed I am, and have been ever since I made a foolish wager which I regretted the moment after I had gotten into it. You are such a clean, straightforward person, Peggy, I don’t suppose you can even imagine how a human being can do an ugly thing and yet not be altogether horrid.”
Ralph was talking like a boy, forgetting that he was a number of years older than his companion. ”

“ Surely the pine was a wise choice for the Camp Fire emblem. If a girl can grow into a woman keeping the same kind of spiritual fragrance that the pine tree sheds as a physical one, she has no reason to fear that her value may ever fail.
[191]
Peggy had not seen Ralph since the afternoon of his uncomfortable confession and she had not made up her mind just how she should meet him. So now her eyes widened and her lips parted a little; she was already flushed from the exertion of her work and the weight of the burden she carried. ”

“ It was not that Peggy was acting to deceive him or any one else. She had almost tragically little ability for playing any part that was not essentially straightforward and truthful. But, after she had gone to bed, in thinking over what Howard Brent had told her, Peggy had become more convinced than ever that he had in some way made a mistake. She simply did not believe that Ralph Marshall could have made a wager in regard to winning her friendship. Whatever weaknesses of character he might possess, he had always been well bred. ”

“ Webster should have had so queer a son and not strange that they should not understand him. Billy was one of the persons whom no one ever fully understands and who never fully understands himself, because he was intended to travel by a different route than the most of us. There was a streak of genius in the O’Neill family. Polly O’Neill, now Mrs. Burton, was never like other people, besides possessing a great gift as an actress. Perhaps Billy was only odd without her genius, but the future alone could answer this question. ”

“ Ralph now felt that he would rather come to grief than confess his nervousness to the other man. Peggy, he would not have minded. She was never disagreeable when people did not enjoy exactly the same things she did.
Indeed, Ralph was becoming convinced that Peggy Webster was one of the finest girls he had ever known. He had set about trying to be particularly friendly with her because of his wager. But, if he had not succeeded in making Peggy like him by his attentions to her, he had certainly succeeded in making himself fond of Peggy. ”

“ Ralph Marshall’s face was so troubled that Peggy involuntarily slipped her arm inside his. Of course, one never forgets an unkindness; it is hardly possible, but she had in a measure forgiven Ralph for his once careless attitude toward her. Moreover, at present it made one feel safer and happier to have the touch of something human near one, while beholding so much of nature in an unfriendly mood. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Bettina’s tones were distinctly aggrieved. She and Peggy were such devoted friends that she was annoyed at Peggy’s sudden friendship with a person whom she thought so ordinary and uninteresting, as she considered Ralph.
“He and Peggy are about as unlike as two people ever were in this world,” she added crossly.
“Oh, Ralph is nice enough, ‘Tall Princess;’ you never were altogether fair in your estimate of him. Some people in this world must be frivolous, and Ralph has never been up against a difficulty, or in fact against anything that might develop his character,” Mrs. Burton answered. ”

“ Then, before the watchers exactly realized her purpose, she had crouched and sprung from the ledge. For the instant she was in the air she was a figure of bronze and crimson. The moment had struck the earth, she was merely Peggy Webster, in a khaki Camp Fire costume with a red band about her black hair and a little out of breath from her plunge. ”

“ Peggy and Bettina both ran forward to the narrow opening between the two cliff walls. Then they beheld an extremely pretty, rather plump woman, with rose-colored cheeks and grey in her brown hair, riding astride a burro. The burro was being lead by another woman of the same age, extraordinarily like and yet unlike the other one. The woman on foot was more slender and paler, her hair was darker and not grey, and her eyes a deeper blue. ”

“ There is just one thing we have to rely on in order to save Billy from what may turn into a real difficulty. Vera Lageloff has confided in me that she and Billy one afternoon discovered a group of objectionable men. I don’t know anything about them, except that they were on a strike or something of the kind, and that you and Peggy had met them by accident a short time before. But Billy has a passion for the unfortunate. He had only to hear that people are up in arms against something or some one and he is always in the midst of them. ”

“ Vera frowned. She cared for Peggy more perhaps than for any of the other Camp Fire girls and she also had been a little surprised at her recent behavior. Yet she answered sensibly:
[108]
“It isn’t important, you know, Billy, whether you like Ralph Marshall or not, so long as Peggy does. You know you have said a hundred times you did not think outsiders had a right to interfere with friendships. And Peggy’s pretty clever! If she likes Ralph there must be more to him than the rest of us can see. She don’t like many people.” ”

“ The figure, still wrapped in the blanket, was at present sitting up, looking from one girl to the other in a quietly disinterested fashion.
“Oh, no, I am never worried over Peggy when she is attempting athletic feats,” he announced. “She will never do herself serious harm in that way. What I fear for her, what I know will hurt her some day, are the experiences about which she is so scornful at present. You see she is perfectly convinced that she will never care for any human being outside her family and a few friends. So nothing and no one can ever harm her.” ”

“ Billy, in his favorite fashion, was lying out in the sunshine on an Indian blanket, while his mother sat on one side of him, sewing, and Vera Lageloff on the other, reading to them both. They had built themselves a second camp fire in order to be a little apart from the rest of the group and not disturb any one by their reading. ”

“ Billy Webster accepted the cup of tea and a comfortable number of sandwiches which Vera now offered him.
“Don’t be absurd, Billy,” Peggy challenged, her face reddening in spite of her effects to appear undisturbed. “As far as you are concerned you will look ever so much better as soon as you cease behaving like an invalid. I do believe you are in better health than you wish us to think you are.” ”

“ Ralph Marshall had been listening to his two friends, without entering into the conversation, but he now shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh you and Benton are both wrong, Brent; girls are all alike. It is only that they are better actresses than men are and can appear to be different. I’ll bet Peggy Webster is as sentimental and as vain as most of them. I’ll wager I can prove it to you. She is an only girl and has lived surrounded by an adoring family. I don’t suppose she has ever had any man pay her the least attention. If she had she would be like all the rest.”
Terry Benton laughed. ”

“ Peggy now dropped down beside her.
“Don’t say I am masculine, please, Bettina; I do so hate a masculine woman. Your last remark was only a more polite way of expressing the same unpleasant idea. Why don’t you say instead that I am ‘Seraphita?’ She is Balzac’s charming character—half girl, half boy, neither and both. When I am in favor with Tante she has a way of declaring me another Seraphita.”
[12]
“Besides your sudden plunge might have frightened Billy,” Vera Lageloff interrupted, not realizing how her speech betrayed the interest usually uppermost in her mind. ”

“ Yet his illness and his physical need of her brought him nearer to her than any one in the world.
“I think people ought to do what they like only when they can be perfectly fair to others at the same time,” she answered gently.
This time Billy smiled. “If one is wanting a thing very hard for oneself, it is not always easy to remember other people; although, of course, it is right,” he agreed unexpectedly. “Still I don’t believe I am doing Vera any serious injustice. She does a great deal more of the Camp Fire work than any of the other girls, and yet none of you realize it. ”

“ In looking close at Peggy, what one was forced to admire in her most was the clearness and beauty of her dark eyes, which stared straight into yours with a perfect faith that the ideals of every human being were as clear and sincere as her own. ”