The Camp Fire Girls by the Blue Lagoon

It was at Bettina's request that her father had undertaken to pay for the little girl's education. There had been no thought of making her a member of their household, save perhaps during certain holidays.

With Marguerite Arnot the circumstances were different. Marguerite was older and in spite of her difficult background of poverty and hard work2 was possessed of unusual beauty and charm. Then at once Marguerite had responded to her mother's influence. Indeed, Bettina, although recognizing the unreasonableness of her own attitude, frequently had to stifle pangs of something approaching jealousy at the sympathetic relation between them.

Marguerite was no longer shy save in a graceful and attractive fashion. If she played but an inconspicuous part in the social life now surrounding her, she had the French tact and resourcefulness. It seemed to Bettina that, as her own difference of opinion with her mother had grown and developed, Marguerite was beginning to fill her place. In justice she could not criticize Marguerite for circumstances with which she had nothing to do, although not enjoying the idea that her mother was turning to some one else for the sympathy and devotion which should have been her own to give and to receive.

This afternoon, wandering about the Natural History Museum with Elce, Bettina was not particularly intent upon the exhibitions, but instead was planning a letter which she contemplated writing home later in the evening, when Mrs. Burton had gone to the theater and she could be alone.

She meant to surrender her own desire; nothing else appeared possible, but she also wished her family to appreciate that she believed she was being treated unjustly and that she had the right to her own choice of life.

Reaching a secluded corner and discovering an unoccupied bench, Bettina sat down, suggesting that Elce wander about alone and come back for her later. They were on the floor devoted to the reproduction of wild birds in their native haunts. Since the collection was a rarely beautiful one, Bettina believed it would be of so great fascination as to keep the younger girl occupied for some time. Personally she was already fatigued. Moreover, she wished for an opportunity to think without the possibility of being interrupted at any moment.

After her original talk with her Camp Fire guardian she had not referred to the subject of their interview. There was little reason why she should. Definitely she understood that Mrs. Burton's sympathy was with her mother and that she had but scant patience with her rebellion against what might appear to most girls as a singularly fortunate fate.

Bettina was not only disappointed, but puzzled and aggrieved. From any one save her Camp Fire guardian she would have expected such a point of view. She herself was able to accept the fact that it was but natural other people should consider an opportunity to enter Washington society, chaperoned by her mother and with her father's prominent official position, to be the summit of any natural girl's desire. Yet from her Camp Fire guardian Bettina had hoped for another viewpoint. Had she not heard her oftentimes insist that every living human being must follow his or her own road, and that whether for good or ill she could have followed no career save the one she had chosen.

The difference in their positions Bettina Graham had far too much intelligence not to recognize. She was not choosing the career of an artist and had revealed no exceptional gifts. She merely wanted to give her life in service to persons less fortunate than herself, rather than waste it, as she felt, in a society existence for which she had neither liking nor taste. There was nothing romantic nor inspiring in her desire. Her mother and father were both convinced that such work should be left to older women, or to girls who possessed neither her position nor opportunities.

So since the prop upon which unconsciously she had been leaning, Mrs. Burton's approval and help, had failed her, Bettina decided to make no further protest for the present. Later she must convince her family that her desire was not a whim, a moment's caprice, the influence of a stronger personality, which would vanish when other interests became more absorbing.

Suddenly Bettina got up, realizing that the room in which she was seated was growing surprisingly dark and that a guard was moving about, announcing that the hour for closing had arrived.

Before leaving Bettina had first to find her companion.

At the farther end of the room she observed that a small crowd had formed, who seemed loath to depart.

Drawing near, to her amazement she heard a number of beautiful, birdlike notes with which she was familiar.

Undisturbed by her audience, Elce was standing by a showcase filled with birds from the northern part of England, birds which the little girl had known almost from babyhood, as she had spent the greater part of her time in the woods. To-day amid strange and different surroundings, with apparent unconsciousness, she was repeating such bird notes as she could recall.

The crowd about her was amused and admiring.

Bettina laid her hand on the younger girl's shoulder.

"Elce, we must go at once, it is growing late. And you must remember you are not in the woods, or you will have so large an audience surrounding us some day that we shall not be able to make our escape. You are an odd child! I thought you were exceptionally shy and afraid of people, and now you do a surprising thing like this and appear not in the least abashed."

In farewell Elce was nodding to several persons who had been standing near. She appeared entirely unaware that her behavior had been unusual.

Out in the street Bettina discovered that the darkness had not been due solely to the lateness of the hour, but that a thunderstorm was approaching.

A few moments she stood hesitating. The History Museum was on the west side of the city and uptown and she wished to reach the east side and down town as promptly as possible. By what method she could most quickly accomplish this result she was not certain. Holding tight to her companion's hand Bettina made a hurried rush toward the Broadway subway.

She had no umbrella and large drops of rain were descending. The darkness was surprising and interesting. Men and women stopped in their onward rush to look upward toward the sky, where the clouds were magnificent.

Then the rain became a downpour. Still Bettina and Elce rushed on, scarcely seeing where they were going.

A moment and Bettina found her horizon limited by an umbrella, which made a circular barrier directly in her path.

"Is it possible that people can meet by accident in New York City in this way? I do not see how you can remember us," she was saying the following moment.

"Our meeting is not so surprising as you think; people who live in New York never see their acquaintances unexpectedly, while strangers always do. I am taking it for granted that you are not a New Yorker. You will have my umbrella, won't you?"

Bettina shook her head.

"No, I cannot do that, but if you will see us to the subway and save Elce from drowning in this rain, I shall be under a second obligation to you. We did find Mrs. Burton the other evening in the fashion you suggested."

Bettina was smiling, amused and entertained by her unexpected encounter. The rain was dripping from her hat, her hair blowing, her cloth skirt whipped about her ankles.

"We are trying to reach Gramercy Square," she added, when they had set out, their companion vainly attempting to hold his umbrella above the two girls.

"Then I suggest you take the bus so as not to have to cross to the shuttle at Times Square at this rush hour. You won't think I intend being impertinent, because already I have discovered two things about you. You are staying with Mrs. Richard Burton and apparently she lives in Gramercy Park. You see, you have an unfair advantage of me in one respect, as you know that my name is Burton and I have no idea of yours."

Making no rejoinder, Bettina's manner became perceptibly colder. She was not an unconventional person and was beginning to fear that she had displayed too great friendliness in permitting herself to recognize an acquaintance whom she had met in so informal a fashion.

Yet until this moment he had seemed unusually courteous.

At her change of manner he turned and began talking to Elce, so that Bettina was able to look at him more attentively.

She had only an indistinct impression of him as he stood in his own doorway several evenings before, giving her the aid of his friendly advice. Curious that she should be appealing to his friendliness so soon again! Now she saw that the young man had brown hair and eyes, was a good deal taller than she, and that he had an expression of delightful gaiety. Unconsciously Bettina felt a slight sensation of envy. She knew the copy of Donatello's faun and there was something in her companion which suggested the famous statue. His brown hair, wet by the rain, curled in heavy clusters, his ears were slightly pointed, his face glowed with health and humor.

"I am sorry if I have offended you," he added. "For my own part, I never have understood why human beings require so much formality in learning to know one another. I confess I have been struggling to discover an acquaintance who knows your Mr. and Mrs. Burton ever since our accidental meeting the other evening. No one seems able to help me. The only human being I know named Burton outside my own family is a Captain Burton I saw in France. He was engaged in Red Cross work over there. But I met him on the street after our return and I remember he told me he was living in Washington."

Bettina bit her lips to hide their smiling, not altogether displeased by this information.

"We have reached Broadway, haven't we? I am so much obliged to you, as here comes our bus. It would be odd, wouldn't it, if by chance we should both know the same Captain Burton. My Mr. Richard Burton was in France in the service of the Red Cross and did live in Washington for a time after his return to this country. He does not use his title at present, since he has given up his Red Cross work, although many persons continue to call him Captain Burton. Of course there may have been any number of Captain Burtons in the army. I have no idea that we can possess any acquaintance in common. Good-by and thank you."

CHAPTER V

RENUNCIATION

At the door of Mrs. Burton's private sitting-room, which was slightly ajar, hearing voices inside, Bettina paused. She had changed her wet outdoor costume for a simple dinner dress, but did not wish to disturb any visitor, knowing that her Camp Fire guardian saw only intimate friends at this hour and in this room. The room in which Bettina was standing at present was the ordinary reception room.

Mrs. Burton was speaking and an instant later Bettina caught the sound of her own name.

"I did not dream, my dear, that Bettina could be so selfish and unreasonable. I confess I am deeply disappointed in her! Save that she told me what she wished with her own lips, I could never have believed she could be so inconsiderate of you."

Then a voice followed which surprised Bettina, although it was the one voice with which she was more familiar than any other.

"But, Polly, perhaps you do not understand Bettina. She never before has seemed either selfish or unreasonable. And if she now appears inconsiderate of me, the fault probably is mine. Bettina should have had a more serious-minded mother, one who would not have asked her to waste her gifts and her beautiful, generous nature in a society existence. I have been talking with Anthony since Bettina came to you. He seems unusually severe and for the first time I can recall is annoyed with his 'Slim Princess,' the title he used to bestow on Bettina. Anthony declares that Bettina should wish to be with me beyond any other possible desire and that she particularly needs my influence. This I am afraid is not true. I have been struggling to make Anthony see, and you must recognize this as an excuse for Bettina, Polly, dear, that her wish at present is merely an inheritance from Anthony. For as long as I can remember Anthony has been working to better conditions for people whom he considers less fortunate than himself. This has kept him many years in political life, when often his own desire has been to retire. Now Bettina simply is longing to express the same ideal in the work that, as a young girl, she feels herself by nature fitted for. I have been standing in her way, I am afraid the selfishness has been mine, although at first I was unable to see the situation in this light. I am so proud of Bettina and so wanted her to be with me in order to introduce her to the brilliant and charming friends Anthony and I have acquired in our years in Washington."

"You are an angel, Betty!" Mrs. Burton responded.

Her companion laughed, for the first time her voice revealing a happier tone.

"Polly, there is only one human being in this world possessed of fewer angelic attributes! That person is your famous self. It is ridiculous and not in the least fair of you to be so critical of Bettina. I presume you have forgotten that when you were a girl you disappeared-was it for over a year? – from all of us who cared for you. At that time you deliberately set out to try your fortune in so reprehensible a career as the stage. Now if Bettina had chosen so undesirable a profession as yours, I might be unhappy. The work she wishes to do is constructive and unselfish. I went to call on Miss Merton, the friend Bettina made last summer who interested her in social settlement work. She has a very different impression of Bettina from the one you seem to have acquired as her Camp Fire guardian. She is a remarkable woman and I never wish to forget what she said to me. She even agreed that Bettina should remain this winter with me and do what I planned for her, yet she believes that Bettina has a wonderful personality and unusual gifts and that one day she will do work that may be of permanent value. Under the circumstances it is I who have failed Bettina. In the future she will remember and find it hard to forgive me."

"Mother!" there was a little rush as Bettina entered the room. An instant after her arms were about her mother and her cheek resting against her beautiful soft hair.

"I have been playing eavesdropper outside the door for the past ten minutes and so heard Tante villify my character and your defence of me. She isn't to be trusted, is she, dearest?"

Bettina glanced toward her Camp Fire guardian. There was a little flash of understanding between them.

Immediately Mrs. Burton rose from her chair.

"I am going into my room to dress for dinner, Betty. I don't know what Bettina's idea of you may be, but I am convinced that you are unreasonable and inconsiderate. I have merely seen your side of this question because of my affection for you. In return you tell me that I have no true appreciation of your daughter and that I have chosen a profession for which you feel not respect while Bettina's choice is altogether admirable."

Mrs. Burton's eyes were lowered and her cheeks flushed as she moved toward her own door.

"Polly dear, I haven't wounded you? Please don't be angry with me, you never have been in all these years."

There was no reply. Bettina whispered, "Don't mind Tante, mother. I think she really intended to force you to defend me. Certainly I am grateful to her. Besides, she needs your criticism this winter, now her play is such a success and she no longer has Aunt Patricia or her Camp Fire girls to keep her in order. As for all those foolish, delightful things you said about me, I shall remember them always, although of course they are not true. When are you going home? I want to go with you, I mean to be the most popular debutante in Washington this winter. The other foolish dream of mine can wait."

Mrs. Graham shook her head.

"No, Bettina, now I understand how you feel, I really don't desire you to do anything except what you wish. Don't leave us, please, Polly, not for a few moments, I want to talk to you. You can't be offended. Miss Merton suggests that Bettina take some special courses in social work this winter and that she come to her for practical experience in the work two or three times a week.

"I won't be lonely, I'll run over to New York frequently to see you both. And remember, Polly, that you promised me that you would come to me in the spring, no matter if your play is the greatest success in New York. You assured Richard and me that you would not try your strength by a too long engagement. Besides, you have never seen our 'House by the Blue Lagoon'. Bettina and I have given the place this title. It was Anthony's anniversary gift to me. The house is on an island in the sea, but there is an arm of water that has cut its way into the land that is blue as the Bay of Naples. You'll bring as many of your Sunrise Camp Fire girls with you as you can induce to come. This shall be my reward that you and Bettina both care more for what you are pleased to call your careers than for me. I shall try to persuade Aunt Patricia to join us. She must have relented by that time."

Mrs. Burton shook her head.

"Never, dear! But of course I am coming to you. I lie awake at night and dream of the happy time we shall have together when the winter's work is past. 'The Blue Lagoon', the very name is magical."

CHAPTER VI

THE BOX PARTY

The group of people entered the box nearest the stage a few moments before the curtain was to ascend.

In the effort to find places there was the usual brief confusion; in the end the youngest of the girls was seated in the chair next the footlights, with two other girls in the adjoining chairs, the chaperon and a fourth girl behind them, while a little in the background were three young men.

"Mother, do take the outside chair; I am afraid you will not be able to see properly, Bettina Graham suggested.

"Besides, Mrs. Graham, we wish the handsomest member of our box party to occupy the most conspicuous place."

Betty Graham arose to change places with her daughter.

"Never mind, David, I am perfectly willing to allow you to talk to Bettina rather than to me, without such arrant flattery which is not apt to make you popular. Besides, as I have not seen Mrs. Burton's new play and am deeply interested, I do not wish to be interrupted. I am afraid you young persons may wish to talk."

"There will be little danger of conversation once the play is started," a third voice interposed, "I have seen it three times and found it as absorbing the last time as I did the first."

Bettina Graham turned toward the speaker.

"I am glad you were able to come with us to-night, Mr. Burton. Do you remember that you were the first person in New York to mention, 'A Tide in the Affairs' to me? In any event, mother, you need not fear we shall be guilty of such bad manners as to attempt to talk while the performance is going on even if we dared. It is odd that I don't know the story of the play, but then I have done my best not to find out so as not to affect my pleasure."

Dressed in a new evening gown of pale green chiffon, which had been her mother's gift since her arrival in New York, with a silver girdle and a fillet of silver wound about her fair hair, her cheeks flushed with excitement, Bettina Graham had never been more beautiful.

At least this was the impression she made upon two of the three young men who were members of the same party; the third was too absorbed in his own train of thought and in his excitement over seeing Mrs. Burton act for the first time to pay any particular attention to any one of the four girls. Such interest as Allan Drain had expressed had been for Mrs. Graham, who was his especial friend.

As Robert Burton had seen Bettina only four times before this evening, his opinion was hardly of the same critical value as David Hale's, whom Bettina had met and known intimately several years before in France.

Robert Burton, however, had never made any effort to find out why Bettina Graham had attracted him since the first moment of their unconventional meeting. To analyze his own wishes had never been his habit. Accepting her half laughing challenge, he straightway had gone to call upon the Mr. Richard Burton, who was her host, and discovered him to be the Captain Burton he had known in France.

Telling the story of his accidental meeting with Bettina he had asked to be properly introduced and Captain Burton had been glad to agree. He knew something of Lieutenant Robert Burton's war record and also that his father was a prominent New York lawyer; but particularly he liked the young fellow's straightforward fashion of setting out to accomplish his design.

Twice in the past week Robert Burton had called to see Bettina and been introduced to her mother and Mrs. Burton. This evening he had been invited to be a member of their theater party. For the same pleasure David Hale had come from Washington.

"Some night you hope to be sitting in the theater like this, Allan, and have Mrs. Burton produce your first play. I wish you luck. Suppose in the spring you make us a visit at my 'House by the Blue Lagoon'. Mrs. Burton will be with me, resting, and perhaps we may be able to persuade her to read the play you are working on this winter. I shall always feel responsible for the loss of your poems,3 although Mary Gilchrist was actually the guilty person," Mrs. Graham declared, leaning a little back in her chair and turning her head to speak to the young man behind her. "I still hope some day to make things up to you, or perhaps Mrs. Burton may."

Allan Drain flushed. He was a tall fellow with strong features and reddish gold hair which he wore fairly long. A student of medicine, he was in reality only interested in writing. He had met the Sunrise Camp Fire girls, their guardian and Mrs. Graham during the past winter which they had spent in the Adirondacks.

"You have fully repaid me for any loss by your friendship," he answered, with a slight huskiness of voice. "To hope that Polly O'Neill Burton will ever be interested in my poor efforts at play writing is too much to expect, yet if it is possible I shall come for the visit with the greatest pleasure. There is nothing I should so enjoy."

A hush at this moment preceded the raising of the curtain. Out of sight of the audience an orchestra began the strains of an Irish melody famous half a century ago.

A suppressed quiver of excitement passed through the small group of Camp Fire girls.

In her seat nearest the stage Sally Ashton bit her lips to hide their trembling, feeling her cheeks suddenly flame. She had been scarcely aware of the conversation going on about her, or that the eyes of a number of persons in the audience had been admiringly turned toward her. She wore a dress of rose-colored net with no trimming save a broad satin girdle of the same shade.

Vera and Alice Ashton were in white, Mrs. Graham in an amber satin with a string of topazes about her throat, her wonderful auburn hair exquisitely arranged, her skin of a beautiful warm clearness, was more lovely than the girl of years before.

Waiting to see the curtain rise she was the Betty Ashton of long ago, who had been one of the first persons to believe in the genius of the girl, Polly O'Neill, always her dearest friend.

"I have not seen Polly act for so long a time, Bettina, I am almost as excited as if this was her début night. Yet Polly is sure enough of her laurels these days!" Mrs. Graham whispered.

Then the curtain rose.

The first scene disclosed a small cabin set on a green hillside with a miniature lake in front.

A girl in a green skirt, a white blouse and a green velvet bodice is seen seated on the grass near the water. She is slowly crooning a love song with the words scarcely audible.

Finally becoming impatient, she rises and wanders about, a frown on her face, a pathetic droop to her slim figure.

"Mrs. Burton looks about sixteen, doesn't she? Younger than any one of you!" David Hale murmured.

Bettina paid not the slightest attention to his remark, and scarcely heard it, as at this moment a second figure entered the stage, a boy who is about to set forth on a journey; one recognizes this from his costume before any words are exchanged. He has come to say good-by.