Margaret Vandercook - The Camp Fire Girls in After Years

"Whom are you spying upon now, 'Angel in the House?'" the young man's voice asked mockingly. "Don't you think that perhaps you are rather an uncanny person anyhow?"

The girl flushed and found it impossible to keep her lips from trembling. When she had first gone to work in Anthony Graham's office, Kenneth Helm had also been employed there and had been unusually kind to her. Recently, however, he seemed to have avoided and almost to have disliked her. This she knew had caused a change in her own attitude, so perhaps her prejudice against the young man's position as the Governor's private secretary was largely due to this. Nevertheless she had done nothing to deserve the change in his treatment of her, and if a human being is disloyal to one friendship, why not to another?

However, at the present moment the girl only wished to be left alone, so she merely shook her head, explaining: "I didn't mean to be spying upon any one, and I am sorry if you think I am uncanny." Then she glanced pathetically down toward the cane at her side, and this time her companion blushed.

"Oh, I did not mean that, Miss Martins. That is not fair of you," he remonstrated. "But please don't mention to the Governor or any one that you saw me go into his private study tonight, will you? You see, I had forgotten something that I ought to have attended to at the office. My memory is not so good as yours. Won't you let me take you down-stairs?"

The lame girl rose slowly, not knowing exactly how to refuse the young man's offer. Besides, she remembered what Betty had said to her. "She must not be so suspicious and prejudiced against people."

"Certainly I won't speak to Mr. Graham of your having gone into his office. Why should I?" she conceded, laying her hand lightly on her companion's arm. "Besides, do you think I talk to the Governor about his affairs just because I live in his house? He is so quiet and stern I am dreadfully afraid of him. It is Betty, Mrs. Graham, who is my friend. If it is not too much trouble to you and she is not too busy I would like to have you take me to her now for a little while. Never in my life have I seen anything so splendid as this reception tonight!"

When the little French girl talked she was not half so homely and unattractive, Kenneth Helm decided as he made his way with her through the crowd. Moreover, he must not turn her into an enemy, for assuredly Mrs. Graham was her devoted friend and what his wife desired was law with the Governor.

Kenneth Helm intended to succeed in life. This was the keynote of his character. He wanted money and power and meant to do anything necessary to attain them.

ONE morning, a few days later, Mrs. Jack Emmet was ushered into Betty's personal sitting room. Betty was writing notes and Bettina was curled up in a big chair near the window with a book of fairy tales in her lap.

Both of them rose at once, Betty kissing her friend affectionately. But her little girl, who showed her affection differently from other children, sitting down by Meg's side, slipped her small hand inside hers.

Meg was beautifully dressed in a dark blue broadcloth and black fox furs with a velvet hat and small black feather curled close against her light hair. Yet the hat was the least bit awry, one lock of hair had come uncurled and been blown about by the wind, and a single blue button hung loose on the stylish coat. Noticing these absurd details for some reason or other, Betty felt oddly pleased. For they brought back the Meg of old days, whom not all the strenuous years of Camp Fire training had been able to make as neat as she should have been, although since her marriage she seemed to have greatly changed.

Therefore, in observing these unimportant facts of her friend's costume Betty failed to catch the difference in her expression. They began their conversation idly enough in discussing the ball of a few nights before, the Governor's health and just how busy he was and what people were saying of him in Concord. For, although Mr. and Mrs. Graham had only been installed in the Governor's mansion a few weeks, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Emmet had been living in Concord ever since their marriage about five years before.

Nevertheless, if Betty had not observed the change in her friend, in some unaccountable fashion Bettina had. Not that the little girl realized that Mrs. Emmet had dark circles under her eyes and that instead of gazing directly at her mother as she talked, her glance traveled restlessly about the pretty room. Nor did Bettina know that Meg's cheeks were not a natural pink, but flushed to uncomfortable redness; no, she only appreciated that "Aunt Meg," for whom she cared a great deal, was uneasy and unhappy and would perhaps enjoy having her keep close beside her.

"You will stay and take lunch with us, won't you, dear?" Betty urged, moving forward to assist her visitor in removing her wraps. "You see, we shall probably be all by ourselves. Anthony is too busy to come home, Angel is at the office and Faith asked to be left alone for the day. The child is probably scribbling away on some story she desires to write. Then after lunch we can see little Tony. The baby is well again, only the nurse wants him kept quiet."

Affectionately Betty placed her hands on Meg's shoulders and standing directly beside her now for the first time looked closely into her face. To her shocked surprise she discovered that unexpected tears had started to Meg's eyes.

At once Betty Graham's happy expression clouded. For she was no less ready with her sympathy than in former days, and the Camp Fire girls of the old Sunrise Club seemed almost like real sisters.

"You came to tell me of something that is troubling you and I didn't dream of it till this minute!" Betty exclaimed, slipping off Meg's coat and unpinning her hat without waiting for permission. Then, pushing her friend down into a big, soft armchair, she took a lower one opposite.

"Isn't it good fortune that we are living in the same place just as we used to long ago?" She continued talking, of course, to allow her companion to gain her self-control. Then she glanced toward Bettina, but Meg only drew the little girl closer, hiding her face for an instant in her soft hair.

"I'm absurd to be so nervous, Betty," Meg whispered apologetically. "Please don't think there is anything serious the matter. Only – only I have come to ask you a favor and I don't know exactly how to begin. Of course, we used to be very intimate friends and all that, but now you are the Governor's wife, and – and – "

Before she could finish a somewhat hurt voice interposed. "And – and – I am Betty Ashton Graham still, very much at your service, Sweet Marjoram, as Polly once named you. Dear me, Meg, don't be absurd. I can't say I feel particularly exalted by my position as wife of the new Governor, though of course I am frightfully vain of Anthony. Besides you know if there is anything I can do that you would like, I shall be happier than I can say." With a laugh that still had something serious in it, Betty put her hand over her friend's. "I still insist that I owe Anthony partly to you," she ended.

But this time Meg did not trouble to argue the absurd statement.

She began talking at once as rapidly as possible, as if glad to get the subject off her mind.

"It's about John, I came to talk to you, my brother, John Everett, Betty," Meg explained. "I don't know whether you have seen much of him lately, but you were devoted friends once and I thought perhaps for the sake of the past you might be interested."

"John Everett? For the sake of the past I might be interested! Whatever are you talking about?" Betty was now frowning in her effort to understand and looked absurdly like a girl, with her level brows drawn near together and her lips pouting slightly. "Why, of course I am interested. I used to like John better than any of the other beaus we had, when we were girls, except Anthony. Tell me, is John going to be married at last? I have wondered why he has waited such a long time. But I suppose he wanted to be rich first. It has been about two years since we met by accident in a theater in New York, but I thought he had grown handsomer than ever." This time Betty's laugh was more teasing than sympathetic. "I wonder why sisters are so jealous of their big brothers marrying, Mrs. Jack Emmet? You are married yourself – why begrudge John the good fortune? I don't believe Nan has ever entirely forgiven me for capturing Anthony. I am convinced she would have preferred any other of the Camp Fire girls. There is only one of us, however, whom she would have really liked, and that is Sylvia. Yet who would ever think of Doctor Sylvia Wharton's marrying?"