The Camp Fire Girls in After Years Part 10

Quietly Angel shook her head, but she was neither nervous nor offended by the Governor's questioning. She had heard the gossip, strictly within the office, of the loss of these letters and it was most natural that every member of the force should be investigated concerning them.

"I am sorry," she answered, her voice trembling the least little bit in spite of her efforts, "but I have never at any time seen anything of the letters you mention. Could it be possible that one of the servants at the Capitol realized their importance and stole them in order to get money for them?"

"No," the Governor answered promptly, "that is not possible, because the letters were taken from this study and in this house. Think again, Angel, have you seen nothing of them? There is no one else living in the house here, you know, who works at my office except you."

Angel jumped quickly to her feet. "You don't mean--you can't mean," she began chokingly. "Oh, I can't bear it! I shall tell Betty--she will never believe. Why, I thought you were my best friends, almost my only friends." For a moment she found it impossible to go on.

But the Governor was looking almost as wretched as she was herself. "My dear, I don't mean really to accuse you of anything, remember. I am only asking you questions. And I particularly beg of you not to mention this trouble of ours to Betty. She is not very well at present and I am afraid she thinks I am too hard on all her friends. Indeed, I am sure I should never have dreamed of you in connection with this matter, but that some one in whom I have great confidence told me that he had seen you coming out of my study on the night on which I believe my papers were mislaid. We won't talk about the matter any more for the present, however. Possibly the letters will yet turn up, and it has been only my own carelessness that is responsible for the loss. There, do go up to your own room and lie down for a while, Angel. I a.s.sure you this conversation has been as distasteful to me as it has to you. It was only because the discovery of these letters is so important that I decided to talk to you. But don't think I am accusing you."

Sympathetically and apologetically the Governor now smiled at his companion, the smile that had always changed his face so completely from a grave sternness to the utmost kindness and charm.

But Angel would not be appeased. She had always a pa.s.sionate temper inherited from her Latin ancestors, though she usually kept it well under control.

"You mean your private secretary, Kenneth Helm, has suggested that you question me," she announced bitterly. "I knew he disliked me for some reason or other, but I did not know his dislike was as cruel as this.

It was he who saw me sitting out here watching the people down-stairs the night of your Inaugural Ball, because I was too shy to go down alone." For an instant it occurred to Angel to say that she had seen Kenneth Helm enter the Governor's private study on this same evening.

But what would have been the use? The Governor probably knew of it and certainly he had the utmost faith in his secretary. It would only look as if she were trying to be spiteful and turn the suspicion upon some one else. Besides, had she not promised Kenneth Helm not to tell? At least she would not condescend to break her word.

Stumbling half blindly, Angel made her way out of the study. In the hall she found Bettina waiting for her.

"You promised to come and play more secret with me. Will you come now, Angel? We can go up to the nursery and lock the door; there is no one to find us," Tina urged.

But Angel could only shake her head, not daring to let the little girl see into her face.

Nevertheless, outside her own bedroom door she had to meet an even greater strain upon her nerves. For there stood Faith Barton in a pretty house dress and with a box of candy in her hands.

"May I come in and talk to you for a little while, Angel?" she asked, hesitating the least little bit. "Kenneth has just sent me a note and a box of candy, saying that he cannot keep his engagement with me tonight.

He is so dreadfully busy, poor fellow! I don't believe Governor Graham works one-half so hard. So I thought maybe you would let me stay with you, as I am rather lonely. Besides, Angel, there isn't any sense in your treating me so coldly as you have lately. If I am doing wrong in keeping my engagement a secret, I am doing wrong, that's all. But I don't think you ought to be unkind to me. If I have been hateful to you about anything, truly I am sorry. You know I have always been awfully fond of you, dear, and wanted to be your friend ever so much more than you ever wished to be mine."

But instead of answering Faith, the other girl had to push by her almost rudely, stammering:

"I can't talk to you now, Faith. I've got the headache. I'm not very well; I must lie down."

Then with Faith standing almost on her threshold, resolutely Angel closed the door in her face.

If there was one person above all others at this moment with whom she could not bear to talk it was Faith Barton.

CHAPTER XV

WAITING TO FIND OUT

AS the days pa.s.sed on, the little French girl did not find her difficulties grow less. At the office she continued to hear veiled discussions of the seriousness of the lost letters. No one, of course, except a few persons in the Governor's confidence, knew exactly what information the letters contained, but there was no question of their political importance, for everybody could feel the atmosphere of strain and suspense. Yet for one thing at least Angelique Martins was grateful: no one had in any way a.s.sociated her with the lost or stolen papers. For whatever Kenneth Helm suspected, or Governor Graham feared, they had both kept their own counsel. Yet this did not mean that they both considered her guiltless.

Time and time again Angel tried to summon courage to speak directly to Kenneth Helm on the subject. She had frequent opportunities, for even if there was danger of notice or interruption at the office, he came very often to the Governor's mansion to see Faith or to dine with the family.

However, she simply did not know what to do or say. To go to Kenneth and ask him why he had accused her seemed to the girl almost like a confession of wrongdoing. For oftentimes it appears preposterous in this world to be forced into denying an act that one could never have even dreamed of committing. How can one suddenly say, "I am _not_ a thief, I am _not_ a liar," when every thought and act of their lives has been pure and good?

Neither could Angel persuade herself to tell Kenneth Helm that she felt just as suspicious of him as he could possibly feel of her. For she had no proof of any kind except her own dislike and distrust and the fact that she had seen him coming out of the Governor's private study on the same night on which he had suggested that she might have previously entered it. For of course the Governor's private secretary had a right to his chief's private papers at almost all times. No, Kenneth would only consider her accusation an expression of feeble revenge and be perhaps more convinced of her guilt in consequence.

Therefore there was nothing to do but wait with the hope that everything would soon be cleared up and the lost letters either found or their thief discovered.

Moreover, Angel was not even to have the satisfaction of talking the matter over with Betty, the one person in the world who could and would have helped her. For she had the Governor's strict command against this and did not dare disobey. Besides, Angel could see that Betty was unlike herself these days and so should not be troubled by any one else's trials. This, of course, was a mistaken point of view, as nothing would so have helped Betty Graham at this time as to have had some one to think about who really needed her. However, neither her friend nor her husband could have realized this.

Nevertheless there was one consolation that the little French girl enjoyed during these days and that was "the secret" which she and Bettina had been cherishing so ardently for weeks. Every spare hour she had from her work she and Bettina had spent together in a big room at the top of the house, which was Bettina's own private play-room, sacred to her uses only.

It was a lovely room with pale gray walls and warm, rose-colored curtains, and all about were pictures of girls and boys who had come straight out of fairyland and had their photographs taken by such wonderful fairy artists as Maxfield Parish and Elizabeth Shippen Greene.

For you see Angelique was absolutely attempting to draw one of these fairy pictures herself, while Bettina was acting as her model.

The picture was not to be a portrait, the artist had scarcely courage to have undertaken that, but it was to represent Bettina's favorite heroine, "Snow White and Rose Red."

All her life, ever since she was a little girl of five or six, Angelique Martins had been drawing and painting whenever she had the least chance or excuse. Of course it was this same artistic gift that had showed in her clever fingers and sense of color through all the work which she had done in the Camp Fire Club. But of her actual talent as an artist Angelique had always been extremely shy. You see, she cared for art so much that she did not consider that she had any _real_ talent. But even confessing that she had the least little ability, of course it would take years of study and goodness knows how much money before she could have hoped to amount to anything.

Nevertheless there was nothing to forbid the little lame French girl's amusing herself with her fancy whenever she had the chance. And ever since she could remember, Angel had been drawing pictures for Bettina.

It had been their favorite amus.e.m.e.nt as soon as Tina pa.s.sed beyond her babyhood, which was sooner than most children.

Naturally Angel had drawn hundreds of pictures with Bettina as her model before, but never one half so ambitious as this. However, this last one represented about the sixth effort, and it was a great question even now whether this was to be the final one. For "Snow White and Rose Red"

was not merely a play picture, one that had been painted merely for amus.e.m.e.nt; it had a most serious intention behind it.

Weeks before in a magazine which the two friends had been looking over together they had come across an advertis.e.m.e.nt. A prize of two hundred dollars was offered for the best picture ill.u.s.trating any fairy story.

Moreover, no well-known artist was to be allowed to enter the compet.i.tion; the drawings were all to be made by amateurs under twenty-five years of age.

The first suggestion that Angel should take part in this wonderful contest had come, of course, from Bettina as soon as the older girl had read her the amazing announcement, for Tina's faith in her friend was without limit. Then just as naturally Angel first laughed at her suggestion and afterwards decided to try just for fun to see what she could do; and here at last was most furiously in earnest, although still undecided whether to send her picture to the compet.i.tion or to throw it away.

There were only a few days more before the time limit expired.

Therefore, would it be possible for her to undertake an entirely new picture here at the very last?

With these uncertainties weighing on her mind Angel was sitting in front of a small easel with a box of pastels on a table near by. Closer to the big nursery window Bettina was curled up in a white armchair, one foot tucked up under her in a favorite att.i.tude and in her lap were half a dozen red roses.

She was tired, for she had been quiet an unusually long time while Angel made slight changes in her work and then stopped to consider the whole thing disparagingly. But somehow her weariness made Bettina's pose even more charming.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANGEL HAD CAUGHT BETTINA'S ATt.i.tUDE ALMOST EXACTLY]

Her long yellow-brown hair hung over her shoulders down into her very lap, her eyes were wide open and yet were plainly not looking at any particular object. For Tina was making up stories to amuse herself while Angel worked. It was only in this way that she could manage to keep still for so long a time as Angel needed.

But this was the picture that Bettina herself made; what of her friend's drawing of her? Naturally it was not so graceful or pretty as the little girl herself.

Nevertheless, by some happy chance Angel had caught Bettina's att.i.tude almost exactly. Then too she had drawn a little girl who did not look exactly like other children. There was a suggestion of poetry, almost of mystery, about her fairy tale girl, in the wide open blue-gray eyes, dreaming as Tina's so often were, and in the half uncurled lips.

Of course the lines of the drawing were not so firm and clear as an experienced artist would have made them, yet glancing at the little picture, you felt something that made you wish to look at it again.

However, Angel sighed so that Bettina came out of her dream story and stretched herself in the big chair.

"What is the matter?" she inquired. "May I get up and walk about the room now?"