This afternoon Bettina was wearing a bright blue cloth coat with a collar of moleskin and a newly purchased French hat, which had the air of having been designed especially for her. Her eyes were clear and brilliant with interest in her companions and their extraordinary surroundings; her color was deeper than usual, her fair hair, suggesting the familiar phrase, encircled her small head like a crown.
Marguerite Arnot smiled, although not unconscious of the contrast between her own simple black costume and Bettina’s, and of the deeper contrast in their two lives.
“In spite of Miss Graham’s objection to kings, I believe her family and friends oftentimes call her ‘Princess’.”
This time Bettina really was embarrassed.
“Please don’t hold me responsible. I only owe that title to the fact that my father used to tease and flatter me by allowing me to play I was the little princess of the fairy stories we used to read together. No one has less right to the title!”
Weary of Bettina’s appearing the center of the attention, Julie now made an effort to draw her away.
“You promised to show me more of the gardens, Miss Graham. Please let us walk on toward the Fountain Gardens. Marguerite and Mr. Hale will follow or else we can come back here for them,” she pleaded.
During the remainder of the afternoon Julie managed to remain always with Bettina, keeping her separated from any intimate conversation with David Hale.
CHAPTER XVI
Another Afternoon in Paris
On this same day Sally Ashton and Dan Webster spent the latter part of the afternoon together in the city of Paris.
They had started out with the others, but before they had walked more than a few blocks from the house, Dan joined Sally who was beside her sister and Lieutenant Fleury and deliberately interrupted them.
“I say, Sally, I want you to go into Paris with me for the afternoon. I have an especial reason. Oh yes, I realize it isn’t considered the thing to do in France, but you and I are like brother and sister. Besides I asked permission and Tante wishes you to go.”
Dan’s bluntness, his boyish straight forwardness were a trifle annoying, nevertheless, after a little demurring and a slight shrugging of her shoulders, Sally agreed.
She was looking a good deal better than she had in some time past; there was more than a hint of the former and more familiar Sally in the mischievous gleam in her brown eyes and in the fleeting suggestion of dimples in her more rounded cheeks.
And the change had been gradually taking place in Sally ever since the day of her meeting with Lieutenant Robert Fleury and of Private Dan Webster on the streets of Paris.
Since childhood Dan and Sally had known each other, had played together when Mrs. Ashton brought her two little girls to the old Webster farm in New Hampshire, near the original Camp Fire grounds.
As, at the time of Dan’s invitation, they were not far from the railroad station, in something over half an hour Sally and Dan had reached Paris.
“I thought we would drive out the Champs Elysee and into the Bois, Sally,” Dan explained, signaling a cab, as soon as he had guided his companion out of the crowd and on to the edge of the sidewalk.
“It is such a beautiful afternoon I don’t want you to miss being out of doors. And as I want to have an intimate talk with you, this would seem about as good an opportunity as we can ever have.”
Nodding her agreement, Sally allowed Dan to assist her into the dilapidated cab with as much grace and dignity as if she had been entering a royal coach. But Sally was the type of girl who very much enjoyed men wait upon her and take care of her in the small matters of life; although perfectly capable of caring for herself, she had too much wisdom always to reveal it.
Settling back now into the seat of the cab Sally remarked amiably, as she was feeling in an unusually cheerful frame of mind:
“Well Dan, what in the world can you have to talk to me about that requires all this secrecy? All I can say is that you are looking fifty percent better than when I discovered you. So please remember if you have anything unpleasant to say that you owe your improvement to me.”
In spite of the fact that Sally was talking in this agreeable fashion, Dan was perfectly aware that at the moment she was paying but little attention to him, or to what he might possibly be going to say.
They had reached the Champs Elysees and were now moving on toward the Arc de Triomphe. Down the broad avenue the “marrons,” or horse chestnut trees were green if not yet in bloom, while apparently every person of leisure who was not visiting the park at Versailles this afternoon was driving out toward the Bois.
“Perhaps we had best wait and I’ll explain what I wish to say after we have enjoyed our drive for a little while,” Dan replied wisely.
Therefore he and Sally discussed only casual matters for the next quarter of an hour. But finally, when they had passed under the Arc and were in the Bois, the wooded park on the outskirts of Paris, Dan remarked without further preparation:
“Sally, I want you to promise me to go back to the United States and to your own people at the earliest opportunity. I have been watching you pretty carefully ever since our unexpected encounter a few weeks ago and I never saw a girl more changed than you have been by your work in France. It is true you are looking a little better today, but that is because you are entertained for the time being. When no one is supposed to be paying any attention to you, you appear terribly depressed. As a matter of fact, Sally, you are not the type of girl who should ever have come over to do war work. The fellows have all said that some of the girls had better have stayed at home and made bandages and knit socks.”
At this Sally appeared deeply hurt.
“You are not kind, Dan, even if what you say is in a measure true. Recently it has seemed awfully difficult for me to take the proper interest in the work of organizing the Camp Fire in France, as the other girls are doing. But I think if you ask Aunt Patricia or Tante, they will both tell you that I tried to do my share of the work at our farmhouse on the Aisne. And don’t you think my returning home at once is a question for Tante or for my mother and father to decide?”
Dan Webster was one of the fortunate persons who was rarely troubled by indecision.
In answer to Sally’s question, he shook his head positively.
“No, I don’t. In the first place your mother and father are not here and so are unable to see what a difference there is in you. Tante is one of the most charming persons in the world, but I have never thought her remarkable for good judgment. Besides, Sally, you must not consider that I intend being rude or unkind to you. It is really because I have always been fonder of you than of most girls, that I take the trouble to interfere. I don’t mean that you have not done your best in France and I don’t mean that your work hasn’t been jolly well done, and of course you have always gotten on with fellows and understood them better than most girls. I was thinking more of the effect upon you of what you have seen in France during the war. I have seen enough myself, never to expect to be exactly the same again, but somehow a man does not want a girl he is fond of saddened, especially when she is so young and such a gay little thing as you used to be. I am pretty stupid at trying to say things, Sally, but I wish you to know that Tante and I had a talk about you and she told me to go ahead and see if you would confide in me. She says she has noticed that something has been the matter with you for a long time and your friends have seen it too. But you have never told her or Alice what troubled you and apparently, if there is anything serious the matter, you have only talked to Miss Lord.”
At this instant and for the first time during his long speech Dan hesitated and colored hotly.
He was a splendid looking young fellow nearly six feet high with shining black hair and deep blue eyes. Ordinarily he had a brilliant color, but at present his complexion had not recovered from the long months spent in a German prison.
“Is there anything I can do, Sally? Oh, I might as well speak plainly, I don’t know how to speak in any other way. My sister Peggy told me that you had nursed that French lieutenant, Lieutenant Fleury through an illness of some kind months ago and that a few of the girls believe you care more for him than you would like people to know. That is why I wish you please to go on back home, Sally. You are too young and you are an American girl and he is a Frenchman, and oh, I should hate it, Sally! Forgive me, you know I want to do what your brother would do under the same circumstances, we have known each other so long and you have no brother of your own.”
Sally stopped gazing at the scenery at this moment and turned her golden brown eyes to stare into Dan’s blue ones.
There was a mischievous gleam in their centers and yet oddly there was also a suggestion of tears.
“But I have had another offer of a brother, Dan, oh, not so very long ago! Lieutenant Fleury also suggested that he would like to be a brother to me. I don’t like being ungrateful, but I declined. Really so long as fate sent me no real brother I don’t think I care for an adopted one.
“Just the same, Dan dear, don’t feel I do not appreciate what you have just said. It is true I have never been happy since our retreat to Paris. I am not in love with Lieutenant Fleury, no one need worry over that possibility, but something did happen on the way here which might not have affected any one else seriously, but which I have never been able to forget. You cannot forget the sights and sounds of a great battle, neither can I forget what I saw and heard on our retreat to Paris.
“I saw poor old women and children dying from cold and hunger and babies as well. I saw them being driven a second time penniless and broken from their little homes. Yet it was not these things altogether, Dan, it was something else.”
Along the seat Sally slid her small hand until it was held comfortingly in Dan’s large one.
“I think I would like to tell you, Dan, perhaps it would be easier to speak to you than anyone else and afterwards I shall feel happier.
“One night on our way to Paris from our farmhouse, Aunt Patricia and Vera Lagerloff and I discovered a young girl, not perhaps as old as I am, sitting alone by the side of the road.
“When Aunt Patricia spoke to her, she did not answer, or even look at us. Then Aunt Patricia got down from her wagon and spoke to the girl and asked if she could help her. She found that the girl could not speak and so we took her into the wagon with us.”
Sally’s voice shook a little and she looked so particularly soft and childlike that Dan would have given a good deal to have been able to comfort her at the instant.
Nevertheless he did not interrupt, knowing it was best that Sally be allowed to tell her story in her own way.
“For some strange reason the girl we were trying to be kind to took an extraordinary fancy to me. If Vera or Aunt Patricia asked her a question, she seemed terrified, but she sat for hours as we jogged along the road with her hand in mine and her eyes staring tragically toward me.
“By and by she began to be able to talk to me, just a few words at a time. Toward night she was so weak and ill that Aunt Patricia was frightened, so we halted at one of the deserted French villages and found an old doctor, too old to serve at the front, who was doing his bit for France by treating the refugees as they journeyed on to Paris. He told us that our young French girl had received a terrible nervous shock, perhaps a long time before. He also told us that she was extremely ill, dying from exhaustion and perhaps from other things that she had suffered. So that night we delayed our trip and in the night the girl died. She died with her hand in mine and before she died, Dan, she was able to talk and told me what she had endured. Do you wonder that I do not want to talk of it? I suppose I would have told Tante except that she has been ill and I did not wish to make her unhappy. But of course I can never feel just the same, although I suppose after a time I’ll forget a good deal. You are right, Dan, I do not believe I was really fitted for the work here in France, I was too selfish, too self absorbed and worst of all I knew too little of life. Oh Dan, I can never bear to live in a world again where there is another war.
“But please do let us talk of something else now and never mention this subject again.”
Taking out of her pocket book an infinitesimal handkerchief, Sally now dried her eyes and the next moment pointed toward a small house a few yards from the road.
“Dan, please go in there and get me some tea and cakes won’t you? I am dreadfully hungry. It is a funny thing about me and always amuses the other Camp Fire girls, but it makes me dreadfully hungry to be unhappy. No, I would rather not go with you, we might stay too long and must be in Versailles again before dark.”
In the interval while Sally waited alone a carriage drove past and in the carriage was a tall man with a serious, kindly face, whom Sally recognized at once. Beside him was an attractive middle aged woman with shining brown eyes and hair.
Instinctively Sally bowed and smiled, her lips unconsciously framing the names: “President and Mrs. Wilson.”
Then as they both returned her greeting, a little prayer went up from the girl’s inner consciousness, that this great man who so desired the future peace of the world, might be able to help in bringing it to pass.
CHAPTER XVII
An Unexpected Intrusion
One morning about two weeks later Bettina Graham entered her Camp Fire guardian’s small private sitting-room bearing a note in her hand.
The sitting-room adjoined Mrs. Burton’s bed-room and was at the front of the house on the second floor. Indeed the two rooms were the choice ones of the entire house so that Mrs. Burton had objected to Miss Patricia’s not occupying them herself. The house was hers and she was also the oldest member of the household.
However, Miss Patricia had at once protested that not only were the rooms not particularly desirable, but that they were too cluttered with artistic paraphernalia for her to endure living in them. She had then established herself in a severely plain bed-room on the third floor, after having a great part of the furniture which the room had previously contained removed to other bed-rooms.
Knowing that Miss Patricia would probably not have been comfortable amid her present surroundings, afterwards Mrs. Burton allowed herself the privilege of thoroughly enjoying them.
The two rooms evidently had been designed for a woman of luxurious and exquisite taste. The walls of both rooms were of a delicate robin’s egg blue with panelings of French oak. The furniture was of French oak upholstered in the same shade of blue tapestry and the curtains were of heavy, blue satin damask.
Mrs. Burton was curled up in a large blue chair, writing a letter upon a portfolio which she balanced shakily in her lap.
“I was afraid you might be Aunt Patricia, Bettina. She would undoubtedly reproach me for writing a letter on my lap instead of upon that ornate desk in the corner so plainly intended for the purpose. Don’t tell on me, I know it is reprehensible, but I have always hated doing the right things in the right places at the right time.
“My husband is unhappily aware of this trait of my character. I am writing him now. He joins us in a short time and I expect to go to England with him on a government mission before we sail for home. We may be in England for months. I wonder if you Camp Fire girls would like to spend the summer with us? Aunt Patricia will soon return to the devastated French country to continue the reclamation work there. Her whole thought is absorbed in it, and I believe Vera Lagerloff and Alice Ashton wish to return with her.
“But pardon my talking at such length, Bettina. Was there not something you specially wished to say to me?”
Mrs. Burton straightened herself in her chair trying to appear in a slightly more dignified attitude, and quite unconscious of the small spot of ink which decorated one of her cheeks.
She was also wearing a faded blue cotton morning dress, which she had formerly worn at the farmhouse on the Aisne, which was entirely unsuited to her present surroundings. But she had dressed in a hurry and had forgotten to change her costume.
Bettina smiled.
“It is all right, Tante, I won’t tell, only let me take care of your portfolio while I talk to you and please don’t allow Aunt Patricia to see you in your present toilet. She is too funny! She used to be so extremely severe in the past over any expression of frivolity, either on your part or on ours. Now she seems to wish us to keep perfectly dressed all the time, so as to be in harmony with this lovely house I suppose! Besides, you know she insists that since your maid, Marie, left you finally to marry Mr. Jefferson Simpson, after having refused to consider him in their early acquaintance in the west, that you are unable properly to take care of yourself. This is an unfortunate reputation for a Camp Fire guardian! I won’t keep you a moment; I only want you to read this note from Mr. Hale. He has written to say that he has written for permission for us to visit the Queen’s little secret garden a second time and this time will you please come with us? You will, won’t you, Tante? I want to see the garden again and I would not wish to go alone with Mr. Hale and would rather have you with us than one of the Camp Fire girls.”
Before replying Mrs. Burton looked at Bettina searchingly. Bettina was older than the other Camp Fire girls, not so much in years as in certain phases of character, although in others she was peculiarly candid and childlike.
Ever since their original meeting David Hale had been a frequent guest at Miss Patricia’s home and although on extremely friendly terms with the entire group of American Camp Fire girls, it had seemed to Mrs. Burton that he appeared to have an especial liking for Bettina. Yet Mrs. Burton could not be sure; of late she had observed him talking to Marguerite Arnot as frequently as to Bettina.
At present there was nothing in Bettina’s expression in the least self conscious or confused.
“Why don’t you answer, Tante? Would you rather not join us? I think it will be worth while. The little garden has haunted me, even after seeing it on a winter day, with the promise of what it might be in the springtime!”
Mrs. Burton gave a tiny, impatient shake to her shoulders.
“Why of course, Bettina, I want to go with you; haven’t I answered you? I am really anxious to see the little secret garden and would have been envious of you had you gone without me. Put down Mr. Hale’s note, I will read it later. I must have Captain Burton’s letter ready for the next post.”
And Bettina departed, having placed her letter, which she had taken out of its envelope and left half open upon Mrs. Burton’s table in the center of her sitting-room.
After she had gone, Mrs. Burton finished her own letter, then dressed and went downstairs for a walk. She did not regard the reading of Bettina’s note from Mr. Hale as of immediate importance, as she already knew its contents.
Five minutes after Mrs. Burton’s departure, some one else knocked at her door. When there was no reply from the inside it was slowly opened. This was not an intrusion; the young French girl, Julie Dupont, had been told to leave Mrs. Burton’s gown in her room, even if she were not there to receive it.
These instructions had been given Julie by Marguerite Arnot, who had been altering a costume which Mrs. Burton had said she wished to wear later in the day.
Therefore, there was no objection to Julie’s entering the sitting-room, or having entered it, to stand quietly in the room and study it in detail.
By a chance the little French girl, who was the latest addition to Miss Patricia Lord’s household, had never been in Mrs. Burton’s room before. Now its luxury and typically French appearance, fascinated her. It was true that Julie had seen such rooms before; she had not been apprenticed to a fashionable dressmaker without having been sent on errands which had taken her to French homes of nearly the same character as Miss Lord’s present temporary one. But Julie was too intensely French herself to find their fascination grow less.
At present she appreciated details in the furnishings of the sitting-room as no one of the American Camp Fire girls could have appreciated them. As Julie’s eyes swept from the beautifully shaded blue walls to examine each separate article of furniture, her eyes rested upon the note to Bettina in David Hale’s handwriting. She recognized the writing. He had recently loaned Marguerite Arnot books in which he had written his own name and a few lines as well.
Julie was able to read only a very little English which she had acquired at school.
Nevertheless, she at once picked up the letter, with an expression of eager curiosity.
To her surprise she first discovered Bettina’s name. She had not anticipated this, presuming the note had been written to Mrs. Burton. Instantly she became more interested.
The note was also written in French and not English.
Julie devoted no time to puzzling over this fact. However, the explanation was simple, Bettina and David Hale had been studying French together and therefore David had written in French.
At first Julie read the note idly, but with no compunction, and without even glancing toward Mrs. Burton’s door as if she were fearful of interruption. She really scarcely appeared to appreciate the fact that one did not read a note addressed to another person without that person’s consent. Later she grew more absorbed.
But to understand the young girl’s apparent lack of principle, one needs to know something of her history and also of the state of mind which her stay in Miss Patricia Lord’s household had engendered.
Julie’s mother had died when she was a baby; after a careless fashion she had been brought up by her father, who was a Bohemian and ne’er-do-well. Never for any length of time had her father worked long at any task, or Julie been sure of sufficient food. But always she had shared her father’s confidence and a certain shallow affection and had never criticized or reproached him. Indeed, he was the only person for whom she had ever cared until after her father’s death when she had first learned to know Marguerite Arnot.
When war was declared, Robert Dupont, Julie’s father, had gone off to fight and had been killed in so gallant a manner at Verdun, that one must forgive his weaknesses.
Yet can one ever escape the consequence of weakness? Julie had been left behind, without training, without a natural sense of honor, to repeat his mistakes, unless some one would help her to a new ideal of life. So far there had been no such influence for good in the young French girl’s life.
Marguerite Arnot, Julie cared for devotedly, nevertheless, although this may not have appeared upon the surface, of the two girls Julie Dupont possessed the stronger nature.
Meeting by chance in the tiny hall between their two apartments in the old house in Paris, it was Julie who had first made the advances. It was Julie who had done more for Marguerite’s happiness and comfort than the older girl had done for her. Instinctively Julie had recognized that while Marguerite was beautiful and gentle, she was not strong and needed some one to care for her. And Julie had always cared for her father; after his death her strong, clever, but misguided nature had really required some one upon whom she could lavish her affection.
In her friendship with Marguerite Arnot, Julie’s dreams of the future, absurd and fanciful as dreams often are, were always for Marguerite’s future and not for her own. Believing Marguerite beautiful and charming enough for the most fortunate experience, and yet without the ability to fight for herself, Julie had come to regard herself in the light of Marguerite’s fairy godmother. As soon as possible she must manage to rescue her from the hardships of her present life. Marguerite was nineteen and sufficiently old for a change in her fortune. Yet Julie’s romantic promptings toward arranging for her friend’s future were of the vaguest character, until her visit in Miss Patricia’s home and her meeting with David Hale.
She had not dared speak of her dream openly to any one, least of all to Marguerite Arnot. Yet daily as she sat at her sewing Julie had entertained herself with the thought of Marguerite and David Hale learning to care for each other and the happy future they might spend together.
There had been no foundation for her fancy beyond the fact that David had seemed interested to talk to Marguerite and had admired her beauty and gentle manners. However, Julie knew nothing of the frank and friendly attitude which is a matter of course between young people in the United States. Her only annoyance was, that David Hale appeared equally interested in Bettina Graham.
After reading Bettina’s note, instantly Julie decided that Bettina and David Hale must not visit the Queen’s garden unless Marguerite Arnot accompanied them. The fact that Marguerite had not been invited might have appeared as an obstacle to most persons, but not to Julie.
Her plan was conceived at once undeterred by the necessity for falsehood. She would go and tell Marguerite Arnot that Bettina and David Hale desired her to join them for the afternoon’s expedition to the Queen’s secret garden at Versailles.
Julie Arnot was a student of human nature. Discovering that Marguerite believed herself to have been invited and was eager for the pleasure, neither Bettina nor David would be sufficiently unkind to reveal the truth.