CHAPTER XX--Two Engagements

Ten minutes more must have passed before Betty decided to return to her friends. Yet during her short walk to the pine grove she was still oddly shy and nervous and in a mood wholly dissatisfied with herself. Why in the world did she so often behave coldly to Anthony Graham and with such an appearance of complete unfriendliness? There was nothing further from her own desire, for certainly he had an entire right to have transferred his affection to Meg! To show either anger or pique was small and unwomanly!

Never had there been definite understanding between Anthony and herself. Indeed she had always refused even to listen to any serious expression of his affection for her. Long ago there had been a single evening after her return from Germany, when together they had watched the moon go down behind Sunrise Hill, an evening which she had not been able to forget. Yet she had only herself to blame for the weakness, since if Anthony had forgotten, no girl should cherish such a memory alone.

Now here was an opportunity for proving both her courage and pride. With the thought of her old title of Princess, Betty's cheeks had flamed. How very far she had always been from living up to its real meaning. Yet she must hurry on and cease this absurd and selfish fashion of thinking of herself. A cloud had come swiftly up out of the east and in a few moments there would be a sudden July downpour. Often a brief storm of wind and rain closed an unusually warm day in the New Hampshire hills.

Under no circumstances must Polly suffer. Only a week before had Mrs. Wharton been persuaded to leave Polly in their charge when she and Mollie had both promised to take every possible care of her.

Suddenly Betty began running so that she arrived quite breathless at her destination. Her face was flushed, and from under the blue ribbon her hair had escaped and was curling in red-brown tendrils over her white forehead. Then at the entrance to the group of pines, before she has even become aware of Polly's disappearance, Anthony Graham had unexpectedly caught hold of both her hands.

"Betty, you must listen to me," he demanded. "No, I can't let you go until I have spoken, for if I do you will find some reason for escaping me altogether as you have been doing these many months. You must know I love you and that I have cared for no one else since the hour of our first meeting. Always I have thought of you, always worked to be in some small way worthy even of daring to say I love you. Yet something has come between us during this past year and it is only fair that you should tell me what it is. I do not expect you to love me, Betty, but once you were my friend and I could at least tell you my hopes and fears. Is it that you are engaged to some one else and take this way of letting me know?"

Still Anthony kept close hold of the girl's hands, and now after her first effort she made no further attempt to draw herself away. His eyes were fixed upon hers with an expression that there was no mistaking, yet something in the firm and resolute lines about his mouth revealed the will responsible for Anthony Graham's success and power. Quietly he now drew his companion closer beneath the shelter of the trees, for the first drops of rain were beginning to fall.

"But I am still your friend, Anthony. You are mistaken in thinking that anything has come between us. As for my being engaged to some one else that is quite untrue. I only thought that you and Meg were so intimate that you no longer needed me." For the first time Betty's voice faltered.

Anthony was saying in a tone she should never forget even among the thousands of incidents in their crowded lives, "I shall always need and want you, Betty, to the last instant of created time." Then he brought both her hands up to his lips and kissed them. "Meg was only enduring my friendship so that I might have some one with whom I could talk about you."

Suddenly Anthony let go Betty's hands and stepped back a few paces away from her. His face had lost the radiant look of a brief moment before.

"Betty, a little while ago you told me that you were still my friend and that no one had come between us, and it made me very happy. But I tell you honestly that I do not think I can be happy with such an answer for long. Two years ago, when you and I together watched the moon over Sunrise Hill, I dared not then say more than I did, I had not enough to offer you. But now things are different and it isn't your friendship I want! Ten thousand times, no! It is your love! Do you think, Betty, that you can ever learn to love me?"

Now Betty's face was white and her gray eyes were like deep wells of light.

"Learn to love you, Anthony? Why I am not a school girl any longer and I learned that lesson years and years ago."

When the storm finally broke and the thunder crashed between the heavy deluges of rain neither Anthony nor Betty cared to make for the nearby shelter of Sunrise cabin. Instead they stood close together laughing up at the sky and at the lovely rain-swept world. Once Betty did remember to inquire for the vanished Polly, but Anthony assured her that Polly had joined Mollie and Billy half an hour before and that they would of course take the best possible care of her.

Nevertheless at this instant Polly O'Neill was actually floundering desperately about in the waters of Sunrise Lake while trying to make her way to the side of their overturned skiff. Billy Webster, with his arm about Mollie, was swimming with her safely toward shore.

"Don't be frightened, it is all right, dear. I'll look after Polly in a moment," he whispered encouragingly.

Returning a few moments later Billy discovered his other companion, a very damp and discomfited mermaid, seated somewhat perilously upon the bottom of their wrecked craft.

"I never knew such behavior in my life, Billy Webster," she began angrily, as soon as she was able to get her wet hair out of her mouth. "The idea of your going all the way into shore with Mollie and leaving me to drown. You might at least have seen that I got safe hold of your old boat first."

"Yes, I know; I am sorry," Billy replied, resting one hand on the side of his skiff and so bringing his head up out of the water in order to speak more distinctly. "But you see, Polly, I knew you could swim and Mollie is so easily frightened and it all came so suddenly, the boat's overturning with that heavy gust of wind. To tell you the truth, I didn't even remember you were aboard until Mollie began asking for you. I wonder if you would mind helping me get this skiff right side up. It would be easier for us to paddle in than for me to have to swim with you."

Gasping, Polly slid off her perch.

"After that extra avalanche of cold water nothing matters," she remarked icily. However, her companion did not even hear her.

Safe on land again, Polly waited under a tree while the young man pulled his boat ashore. Her sister had gone ahead to send some one down with blankets and umbrellas. In spite of the rain, damp clothes and the shock of her recent experience, Polly O'Neill was not conscious of feeling particularly cold.

"I hope you are not very uncomfortable, and that our accident won't make you ill again," Billy Webster said a few moments later as he joined her. "I suppose I do owe you a little more explanation for having ignored you so completely. But you see, just about five minutes before you insisted on getting into our boat Mollie had promised to be my wife. We did not dare talk very much after you came on board, but you can understand that I simply wasn't able to think of any one else. You see I have loved Mollie ever since that day when we were children and she bound up the wound you had made in my head."

Once more Polly gasped slightly, and of course she was beginning to feel somewhat chilled.

Billy Webster looked at her severely. "Oh, of course I did think I was in love with you, Polly, for a year or so, I remember. But that was simply because I had not then learned to understand Mollie's true character. I used to believe it would be a fine thing to have a strong influence over you and try to show you the way you should go." Here Billy laughed, and he was very handsome with his damp hair pushed back over his bronzed face and his wet clothes showing the outline of his splendid boyish figure, matured and strengthened by his outdoor life.

"But you see, Polly, I believe nobody is ever going to be able to influence you to any great extent," he continued teasingly, "and at any rate you and I will never have half the chances to quarrel that we would have had if we had ever learned to like each other. I forgive you everything now for Mollie's sake."

For half a moment Polly hesitated, then, holding out her hand, her blue eyes grew gay and tender.

"Thank you, Billy," she said, "for Mollie's sake. If you make her as happy as I think you will, why, I'll also forget and forgive you everything."

Fortunately by the time Mrs. Martins and Ann had arrived with every possible comfort for the invalid. And so Polly was borne to the cabin in the midst of their anxious inquiries and put to bed, where neither her sister nor Betty were allowed to see her during the evening.

If either of the girls suffered from the deprivation of her society there was nothing that gave any indication of unhappiness in either of the two faces.