CHAPTER XVIII--Home Again

"But, my beloved mother, you really can't expect such a sacrifice of me. There isn't anything else in the world you could ask that I would not agree to, but even you must see that this is out of the question."

It was several days later and Polly was in her small sitting room with her mother and Sylvia.

"Besides it is absurd and wicked of Sylvia to have frightened you so and I shan't forgive her, even if she has been good as gold to me all her life. How can I give up my part and go away from New York just when I am beginning to be a tiny bit successful?" Then, overcome with sympathy for herself, Polly cast herself down in a heap upon a small sofa and with her face buried in the sofa cushions burst into tears.

Mrs. Wharton walked nervously up and down the room.

"I know it is dreadfully hard for you, dear, and I do realize how much I am asking, even if you don't think so, Polly," she replied. "Besides you must not be angry with Sylvia. Of course I have not taken the child's opinion alone, clever as she is. Two physicians have seen you in the last few days, as you know, and they have both given me the same opinion. You are on the verge of a nervous breakdown. If you will give up now it may not be serious, but if you will insist upon going on with your work no one will answer for the consequences. It is only a matter of a few weeks, my dear. I have seen your manager and he is willing to agree to your stopping as long as it is absolutely necessary. Perhaps you may be well enough to start in again in the fall. Isn't it wiser to stop now for a short rest than to have to give up altogether later on?" she urged consolingly.

As there was no answer from Polly, Mrs. Wharton's own eyes also filled with tears. At the same moment Sylvia came up to her step-mother and patted her comfortingly on the shoulder. It was odd, but Sylvia rarely expressed affection by kissing or the embraces common among most girls. Yet in her somewhat shy caresses there was fully as deep feeling.

"Don't worry, mother, things will turn out all right," she now said reassuringly. "Of course it is pretty hard on Polly. Even I appreciate that. But it is silly of her to protest against the inevitable. She will save herself a lot of strength if she only finds that out some day. But I'll leave you together, since my being here only makes her more obstinate than ever."

As Sylvia was crossing the floor a sofa cushion was thrown violently at her from the apparently grief-stricken figure on the sofa. But while Mrs. Wharton looked both grieved and shocked Sylvia only laughed. Was there ever such another girl as her step-sister? Here she was at one instant weeping bitterly at the wrecking of her career, as she thought, and the next shying sofa cushions like a naughty child.

Once Sylvia was safely out of the way, Polly again sat upright on the sofa, drawing her mother down beside her. It was just as well that Sylvia had departed, for she was the one person in the world whom Polly had never been able to influence, or turn from her own point of view, by any amount of argument or persuasion. With her mother alone her task would be easier. Nevertheless Mrs. Wharton appeared singularly determined and Polly remembered that there had been occasions when her mother's decision must be obeyed.

However, she was no longer a child, and although it would make her extremely miserable to appear both obstinate and unloving, it might in this single instance be absolutely necessary. How much had she not already endured to gain this slight footing in her profession? Now to turn her back on it in the midst of her first success, because a few persons had made up their minds that she was ill,--well, any sensible or reasonable human being must understand that it was quite out of the question.

So the discussion continued between the woman and girl, the same arguments being repeated over and over, the same pleading, and yet without arriving at any sort of conclusion. There is no knowing how long this might have kept up if there had not come a sudden knocking at the door.

Opening it the boy outside handed Mrs. Wharton a card.

"It is Mr. Hunt who has come to see you, Polly; shall I say you are not well? Or what shall I say? Of course it is out of the question for you to see any stranger, child. You have been crying until your face is swollen and your hair is in dreadful confusion," Mrs. Wharton protested anxiously.

Polly unexpectedly scrambled to her feet. "Ask Mr. Hunt to wait a few minutes, please, mother, and then we will telephone down and tell him to come up. You see I had an engagement with him this afternoon and don't like to refuse to see him. For once it is a good thing I have no pretensions to beauty like Betty and Mollie. Moreover, mother, I am obliged to confess to you that Mr. Hunt has seen me before, not only after I had been weeping, but while I was engaged in the act. You know he was about the only friend I saw all last winter, when I was so blue and discouraged with life. Besides, I am sure he will understand my point of view in this dreadful discussion we have just been having and will help me to convince you."

Five minutes afterwards the celebrated Miss Polly O'Neill had restored her hair and costume to some semblance of order, although her eyes were still somewhat red and heavy, as well as her nose. Nevertheless she greeted her visitor without particular embarrassment. Mrs. Wharton, however, could not pull herself together so readily; so after a few moments of conventional conversation she asked to be excused and went away, leaving her daughter and guest alone.

Fifteen minutes passed, half an hour, finally an entire hour. All this while Mrs. Wharton, remaining in her daughter's bedroom which adjoined the sitting room, could hear the sound of two voices.

Of course Polly did the greater share of the talking, but now and then Richard Hunt would speak for several moments at a time and afterwards there would be odd intervals of silence.

Mrs. Wharton could not hear what was being said, and she scarcely wished to return to the sitting room. She was still far too worried and nervous, although, having an engagement that must be kept, she wished to say good-by to Polly before leaving the hotel.

Richard Hunt rose immediately upon Mrs. Wharton's entrance.

"I am ever so sorry to have made such a long visit," he apologized at once, "and I hope I have not interfered with you. Only Miss O'Neill and I have been having a pretty serious and important talk and I did not realize how much time had passed."

Polly's eyes had been fastened upon something in the far distance. Now she glanced toward her guest.

"Oh, you need not apologize to mother for the length of your stay. When she hears what we have been discussing she will be more than grateful to you," Polly interrupted.

"You see, mother, Mr. Hunt does not agree with me, as I thought he would. Who ever has agreed with me in this tiresome world? He also thinks that I must stop acting at once and go away with you, if my family and the doctors think it necessary. And he has frightened me terribly with stories of people who have nervous breakdowns and never recover. People who never remember the lines in their plays again or what part they are expected to act. So I surrender, dear. I'll go away with you as soon as things can be arranged wherever you wish to take me." And Polly held up both her hands with an intended expression of saintliness, which was not altogether successful.

"Bravo!" Richard Hunt exclaimed quietly.

Mrs. Wharton extended her hand.

"I am more grateful to you than I can express. You have saved us all from a great deal of unhappiness and I believe you have saved Polly from more than she understands," she added.

The girl took her mother's hand, touching it lightly with her lips. "Please don't tell Mr. Hunt what my family think of my obstinacy," she pleaded. "Because if you do, he will either have no respect for me or else will have too much for himself because I gave in to him," she said saucily.

Yet it was probably ten minutes after Mr. Hunt's departure before it occurred to Mrs. Wharton to be surprised over Polly's unexpected surrender to a comparative stranger, when she had refused to be influenced by any member of her own family.

But now the question of chief importance was where should Polly go for her much needed rest? It was her own decision finally that rather than any other place in the world she preferred to return to Woodford to spend the summer months in the old cabin near Sunrise Hill.