Chapter 6 AN UNHAPPY ENDING

There was a gasp of astonishment and dismay from the girls. Somehow all seemed to feel as if Eleanor's reproach were directed at them instead of at the pale and angry Gladys, who stood, scarcely able to believe her ears, looking at the Guardian. There had been no anger in Eleanor's voice, only sorrow and distress.

"Why, what do you mean, Miss Mercer?" Gladys gasped.

"Exactly what I say, Gladys," said Eleanor, in the same level voice. "You are not fit to be one of us unless you mean sincerely and earnestly to keep the Law of the Fire. We are a sisterhood; no girl who is not only willing, but eager, to become our sister, may join us."

Slowly the meaning of her rejection seemed to sink into the mind of Gladys.

"Do you mean that you're not going to let me join?" she asked in a shrill, high pitched voice that showed she was on the verge of giving way to an outbreak of hysterical anger.

"For your own sake it is better that you should not join now, Gladys. Listen to me. I do not blame you greatly for this. I would rather have you act this way than be a hypocrite, pretending to believe in our law when you do not."

"Oh, I hate you! I hate the Camp Fire! I wouldn't join for anything in the world, after this!"

"There will be time to settle that when we are ready to let you join, Gladys," said Eleanor, a little sternness creeping into her voice, as if she was growing angry for the first time. "To join the Camp Fire is a privilege. Remember this-no girl does the Camp Fire a favor by joining it. The Camp Fire does not need any one girl, no matter how clever, or how pretty, or how able she may be, as much as that girl needs the Camp Fire. The Camp Fire, as a whole, is a much greater, finer thing than any single member."

Sobs of anger were choking Gladys when she tried to answer. She could not form intelligible words.

Eleanor glanced at Mary Turner, and the Guardian of the new Camp Fire, on the hint, put her arm about Gladys.

"I think you'd better go back to the camp now, dear," she said, very gently. "You and I will have a talk presently, when you feel better, and perhaps you will see that you are wrong."

All the life and spirit seemed to have left the girls as Gladys, her head bowed, the sound of her sobs still plainly to be heard, left the circle of the firelight and made her lonely way over the beach toward the tents of her own camp. For a few moments silence reigned. Then Eleanor spoke, coolly and steadily, although Mary Turner, who was close to her, knew what an effort her seeming calm represented.

"We have had a hard thing to do to-night," she said. "I know that none of you will add to what Gladys has made herself suffer. She is in the wrong, but I think that very few of us will have any difficulty in remembering many times when we have been wrong, and have been sure that we were right. Gladys thinks now that we are all against her-that we wanted to humiliate her. We must make her understand that she is wrong. Remember, Wo-he-lo means love."

She paused for a moment.

"Wo-he-lo means love," she repeated. "And not love for those whom we cannot help loving. The love that is worth while is that we give to those who repel us, who do not want our love. It is easy to love those who love us. But in time we can make Gladys love us by showing that we want to love her and do what we can to make her happy. And now, since I think none of us feel like staying here, we will sing our good-night song and disperse."

And the soft voices rose like a benediction, mingling in the lovely strains of that most beautiful of all the Camp Fire songs.

Silently, and without the usual glad talk that followed the ending of a Council Fire, the circle broke up, and the girls, in twos and threes, spread over the beach.

"Walk over with me, won't you?" Marcia Bates begged Dolly and Bessie. "Oh, I'm so ashamed! I never thought Gladys would act like that!"

"It isn't your fault, Marcia," said Dolly. "Don't be silly about it. And, do you know, I'm not angry a bit! Just at first I thought I was going to be furious. But-well, somehow I can't help admiring Gladys! I like her better than I ever did before, I really do believe!"

"Oh, I do!" said Bessie, her eyes glowing. "Wasn't she splendid? Of course, she's all wrong, but she had to be plucky to stand up there like that, when she knew everyone was against her!"

"But she had no right to insult all you girls, Bessie."

"I don't believe she meant to insult us a bit," said Dolly. "I don't think she thought much about us. It's just that she has always been brought up to feel a certain way about things, and she couldn't change all at once. A whole lot of girls, while they believed just what she did, and hated the whole idea just as much, would never have dared to say so, when they knew no one agreed with them."

"Yes, it's just as Miss Eleanor said," said Bessie. "She's not a hypocrite, no matter what her other faults are. She's not afraid to say just what she thinks-and that's pretty fine, after all."

"I wish she could hear you," said Marcia, indignantly. "Oh, it's splendid of you, but I can't feel that way, and there's no use pretending. I suppose the real reason I'm so angry is that I'm really very fond of Gladys, and I hate to see her acting this way. She's making a perfect fool of herself, I think."

"But just think of how splendid it will be when she sees she is wrong, Marcia," said Bessie. "Because you want to remember if she's plucky enough to hold out against all her friends this way she will be plucky enough to own up when she sees the truth, too."

"Yes, and she'll be a convert worth making, too," said Dolly. "There's just one thing I'm thinking of, Marcia. Will she stay here? Don't you suppose she'll go home right away? I know I would. I wouldn't want to stay around this beach after what happened at the Council Fire to-night."

They never heard Marcia's answer to that question, for in the darkness, Gladys herself, shaking with anger, rose and confronted them.

"You bet I'm going to stay!" she declared, furiously. "And I'll get even with you, Dolly Ransom, and your nasty old Miss Mercer, and the whole crew of you! Maybe you've been able to set all my friends against me-I'm glad of it!"

"No one is set against you, Gladys," said Marcia, gently.

"Maybe you don't call it that, Marcia Bates, but I've got my own opinion of a lot of girls who call themselves my friends and side against me the way you've done!"

"Why, Gladys, I haven't done a thing-"

"That's just it, you sneak! Why, do you suppose I'd have let them treat you as I was treated to-night? If it had happened to you, and I'd joined before, I'd have got up and thrown their nasty old ring back at them! I don't want their old ring! I've got much prettier ones of my own-gold, and set with sapphires and diamonds!"

"I'm very glad you're going to stay, Gladys!" said Dolly. "I'm sorry I've been cross when I spoke to you lately two or three times, and I hope you'll forgive me. And I think you'll see soon that we're not at all what you think we are in the Camp Fire."

"Oh, you needn't talk that way to me, Dolly Ransom! You can pretend all you like to be a saint, but I've known you too long to swallow all that! You've done just as many mean things as anyone else! And now you stand around and act as if you were ashamed to know me. Just you wait! I'll get even with you, and all the rest of your new friends, if it's the last thing I ever do!"

Bessie's hand reached out for Dolly's. She knew her chum well enough to understand that if Dolly controlled her temper now it would only be by the exercise of the grimmest determination. Sure enough, Dolly's hand was trembling, and Bessie could almost feel the hot anger that was swelling up in her. But Dolly mastered herself nobly.

"You can't make me angry now, Gladys," said Dolly, finally. "You're perfectly right; I've done things that are meaner than anything you did at Lake Dean. And I'm just as sorry for them now as you will be when you understand better."

"Well, you needn't preach to me!" said Gladys, fiercely. "And you can give up expecting me to run away. I'm not a coward, whatever else I may be! And I'd never be able to hold up my head if I thought a lot of common girls had frightened me into running away from this place. I'm going to stay here, and I'm going to have a good time, and you'd better look out for yourselves-that's all I can say! Maybe I know more about you than you think."

And then she turned on her heel and left them.

"Whew!" said Marcia. "I don't see how you kept your temper, Dolly. If she'd said half as much to me as she did to you, I never could have stood it, I can tell you! Whatever did she mean by what she said just then about knowing more than we thought?"

"I don't know," said Dolly, rather anxiously. "But look here, Marcia, I might as well tell you now. There's likely to be a good deal of excitement here."

"Yes," said Bessie, rather bitterly. "And it's all my fault-mine and Zara's, that is."

"I don't see what you can mean," said Marcia, mystified.

"Well, it's quite a long story, but I really think you'd better know all about it, Marcia," said Dolly.

And so, with occasional help from Bessie herself, when Dolly forgot something, or when Bessie's ideas disagreed with hers, Dolly poured the story of the adventures of Bessie and Zara since their flight from Hedgeville into Marcia's ears.

"Why, I never heard of such a thing!" Marcia exclaimed, when the story was told. "So that fire last night wasn't an accident at all?"

"We're quite sure it wasn't, Marcia. And don't you think it looks as if we were right?"

"It certainly does, and I think it's dreadful, Dolly-just dreadful. Oh, Bessie, I am so sorry for you!"

She threw her arms about Bessie impulsively and kissed her, while Dolly, delighted, looked on.

"Doesn't it make you love her more than ever?" she said. "And Bessie is so foolish about it sometimes. She seems to think that girls won't want to have anything to do with her, because she hasn't had a home and parents like the rest of us-or like most of us."

"That is awfully silly, Bessie," said Marcia. "As if it was your fault! People are going to like you for what you are, and for the way you behave-not on account of things that you really haven't a thing to do with. Sensible people, I mean. Of course, if they're like Gladys-but then most people aren't, I think."

"Of course they're not!" said Dolly, stoutly. "And, besides, I'm just sure that Bessie is going to find out about her father and mother some day. I don't believe Mr. Holmes would be taking all the trouble he has about her unless there were something very surprising about her history that we don't know anything about. Do you, Marcia?"

"Of course not! He's got something up his sleeve. Probably she is heiress to a fortune, or something like that, and he wants to get hold of it. He's a very rich man, isn't he, Dolly?"

"Yes. You know he's the owner of a great big department store at home. And Bessie says that it can't be any question of money that makes him so anxious to get hold of her and of Zara, because he has so much already."

"H'm! I guess people who have money like to make more, Dolly. I've heard my father talk about that. He says they're never content, and that's one reason why so many men work themselves to death, simply because they haven't got sense enough to stop and rest when they have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of their lives."

"That's another thing I've told her. And she says that can't be the reason, but just the same she never suggests a better one to take its place."

"Look here," said Marcia, thoughtfully. "If Mr. Holmes is spending so much money, doesn't it cost a whole lot to stop him from doing what he's trying to do, whatever that is? I'm just thinking-my father has ever so much, you know, and I know if I told him, he'd be glad to spend whatever was needed-"

Bessie flushed unhappily.

"Oh, that's one thing that is worrying me terribly!" she cried. "I just know that Miss Eleanor and Mr. Jamieson must have spent a terrible lot on my affairs already, and I don't see how I'm ever going to pay them back! And if I ever mention it, Miss Eleanor gets almost angry, and says I mustn't talk about it at all, even think of it."

"Why, of course you mustn't. It would be awful to think that those horrid people were able to get hold of you and make you unhappy just because they had money and you didn't, Bessie."

And Dolly echoed her exclamation. Naturally enough, Marcia, whose parents were among the richest people in the state, thought little of money, and Dolly, who had always had plenty, even though her family was by no means as rich as Marcia's, felt the same way about the matter. Neither of them valued money particularly; but Bessie, because she had lived ever since she could remember in a family where the pinch of actual poverty was always felt, had a much truer appreciation of the value of money.

She did not want to possess money, but she had a good deal of native pride, and it worried her constantly to think that her good friends were spending money that she could see no prospect, however remote, of repaying.

"I wish there was some way to keep me from having to take all the money they spend on me," she said, wistfully. "As soon as we get back to the city, I'm going to find some work to do, so that I can support myself."

She half expected Marcia to assail that idea, for it seemed to her that, nice as she was, she belonged, like Gladys Cooper, to the class that looked down on work and workers. But to her surprise, Marcia gave a cry of admiration.

"It's splendid for you to feel that way, Bessie!" she said. "But, just the same, I believe you'll have to wait until things are more settled. It would be so much easier for Mr. Holmes to get hold of you if you were working, you know."

"She's going to come and stay with me just as long as she wants to," said Dolly. "And, anyhow, I really believe things are going to be settled for her. Perhaps I've heard something, too!"

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