"Throw it to me and I'll catch it," he called.
But she ran after him and pinned it on and dropped a hasty kiss in the midst of its fragrance, and ran up again, blushing.
And Diana watched the little scene from the top of the stairs and wondered if she had overestimated her own power to endure.
The two women, standing at the window high up in the hallway, saw the doctor depart, then Diana said, suddenly, "Betty, dear, must you wear black?"
The girl's lip trembled.
"But—mother——"
"I know. But, dearie, it wouldn't make her anyhappier to see you so somber. And there's white for you, and all the pale, pretty tints, and you wouldn't be too gay, nor sadden others."
"But your friend, Mrs. Martens," said Bettina, eagerly; "Anthony pointed her out to me this afternoon—she passed here on her way to the post-office, and she was in deep mourning——"
"Sophie's life is all behind her; yours is ahead of you."
"Wouldn't it seem like—forgetting?"
"You can never forget. But when you come to me there will be young people, and I want you to share their life. Shall we call it settled, and plan a white dress for to-morrow night?"
Diana had a fashion of calling things settled, and of bringing others to her point of view. Bettina had no sense of injury, but only boundless confidence in the decisions of the wonderful woman creature who was to fill her life with gladness.
"There will be twelve of us to-morrow night," she sketched rapidly. "Anthony and you and Sophie and I will make four, then there will be two comfortable married couples, and Justin Ford, who is flying his hydro-aeroplane over the harbor, and Bobbie Tucker, who has his yacht in commission, and Sara Duffield, whom you won't care for, because she is a bit of a snob, and Doris Sears, who is sweet and girlish and about your age.
"Sophie and I have picked out the dress you are to wear," she continued. "I think you are just about Sophie's size, and there's an embroidered white, very sheer and fine, with a round low neck and short sleeves, and a girdle of amethyst, and silk stockings and satin slippers of the same color. I'm not sure whether the slippers will fit, but I fancy that a bit of cotton tucked into the toes would make them all right.
"And I want you to wear your hair like I saw the girls in Paris—curled over your ears with a soft fringe—you'll look adorably young, Betty, and so dear and sweet."
The girl's cheeks were brilliant with excitement. "Why, it doesn't seem true. Two days ago I was like Cinderella sitting in the ashes, and now I'm a fairy princess, and you are the fairy godmother."
"Am I, my dear?" Diana spoke absently; her eyes were on a wonderful piece of lace, which, framed quaintly against a background of velvet, hung above a cabinet in the corner.
"Where did you get that collar, Bettina?" she asked.
"It was one of the things that belonged to father's family," the girl explained. "You know he was an Italian, a Venetian—and mother would never let me wear the collar or the old jewels. There's a queer ring. I'm going to give it to Anthony for a wedding ring."
She spoke the last words with a charming hesitation, then went to the little cabinet in the corner and unlocked a drawer. Within was a carved box which when opened showed a massive golden circlet.
"Dad wore it," said Bettina, "on his little finger, but his hands were fat. Anthony's fingers are slim, and he can fit it on the third finger. If he can't get it on the third finger, he shan't wear it."
Diana stared at her in surprise. "Why not?"
"Because it would remind me of Dad," said Bettina, "and I hated Dad."
Here was a new phase of a nature which Diana had judged gentle and yielding.
"But, my dear," she protested, "surely he was your father."
"He broke mother's heart," said Bettina, obstinately; "he loved so many times, and there's onlyone love that is worth while, and people who can go from one person to another aren't worth thinking about."
It was the judgment of a child ignorant of life, but so aptly did her condemnation fit in with Sophie's words of the night before, that Diana drew a sharp breath. "Perhaps he was only mistaken," she said; "perhaps he didn't understand until it was too late what he had lost."
"He should have understood. I don't want to be harsh—he was my father, and I wouldn't talk this way to every one. But suppose Anthony treated me the way my father treated mother. Suppose he told me he loved me, and then—some day, I found that he cared—for some one else. What would you think of him then—what would you think of Anthony?"
As she brought her argument to a triumphant close, Diana put up her white-gloved hands as if to ward off a blow, then she said, a little breathlessly, "Don't let Anthony wear the ring—not yet——"
Bettina, unconscious of the emotion she had roused, put the ring back in the box.
"I don't believe I shall," she said, thoughtfully; "there's an old superstition that a ring worn by aninconstant person carries inconstancy with it—and while I don't believe it—it would make me uncomfortable."
"It would—indeed," was Diana's fervent confirmation.
She was still shivering with the shock of the girlish outburst.
"She loves him," she said to herself in dismay. "She really loves him."
She rose and laid her hand on Bettina's shoulder. "Forget to be unhappy while you are with me, Betty, dear. You are going to be very gay—and, oh, so very, very young——" She bent and kissed her. "And now, I want you to do two things for me;—first, you must call me Diana—and second, you must believe that I am really your friend. If I ever do anything to make you doubt, remember this, that in my heart is just one wish, to help my old friend Anthony to happiness——"
The girl laughed softly, her head up, her eyes shining. "You can't make him much happier than he is," she said; "it may sound awfully conceited, but I think he's happy—because he's going to marry me—Diana."
Diana's house, set high on the rocks, hung over the harbor. In the quaint old town, front doors became back doors, kitchens looked out on the street, and the windows of living-rooms and dining-rooms faced the sea. But there were two seasons when the rocky and ignored gardens of the town were ablaze with beauty—in the lilac month of the spring, and in the dahlia month of the fall.
It was at the time of lilac bloom that Bettina came to make her wonderful visit to Diana, and, after an exciting day in which she had been swept from the hands of the dressmaker to the hands of the hair-dresser, thence to Sophie for inspection and to Diana for confirmation of the completeness of her attire, she found herself, arrayed in all her glory, alone in the wide hallway.
The door was open at the end which faced the town, and the fragrance of the lilacs poured in. The soft wind swayed the branches of the bushes so that theyseemed to float like white and purple clouds against a background of blue.
On the step sat Peter Pan, and as Bettina came toward him he rose to meet her and together they went down the path.
It was there in the old garden that Justin and Bobbie came upon her. They were in the white flannels and blue coats which Diana's informality permitted. The insignia on Bobbie's cap proclaimed him a yachtsman.
Justin, having presented Bobbie, smiled straight into Bettina's eyes.
"To think of finding you here," he said.
"How is your hand?" was her practical question.
"Dr. Anthony cured it. I was able to fly yesterday over the harbor. When are you going to fly with me?"
"Never." Bettina shivered with apprehension.
"Oh, but you'd like it," broke in Bobbie, eagerly. "I've been up with him, and it's like floating on a sea of sunshine. I give you my word the sensation is delightful."
Justin said no more on the subject. He could wait, but some day he was going to fly with this little golden girl. He wondered who had been inspired to dress her in that white and amethyst combination. She was as flower-like as the lilacs themselves—she belonged to them; she was exquisite.
He walked beside her, content to let Bobbie monopolize the conversation, which was unusual, for Justin liked to be the center of things. He had always been the center of things, and he was not diffident, as a rule, in his approaches toward friendship.
"The funny thing about this place," Bobbie was saying, "is that you have to pass the kitchen door to get to the front. When I was a little boy Delia used to roll out cookies on that table by the window, and I'd sit on the step and wait for them."
"Delia's a dear," said Bettina. "I fell in love with her the minute I came. And I fell in love with Peter."
Peter, hearing his name, jumped down from the stone wall, where he had been watching the robins, and again joined them.
"Peter and I are old friends," said Bobbie, and stopped to pet him.
"So you are going to stay with Diana?" Justin asked.
Bettina nodded. "Yes. Isn't she wonderful?"
"Wonderful. It's a pity we aren't a monarchy,so that Diana could rule as a queen. She's that kind of woman. A man instinctively looks up to her."
"That's what Anthony says."
Marveling somewhat at her familiar use of the name of the distinguished surgeon, Justin replied, "Oh, of course, Anthony thinks she's perfect. He'll marry her some day."
Bettina's startled glance questioned him. "What makes you say that? He won't, of course, but what makes you say it?"
"Because it would be such a perfect arrangement. They are so well matched."
"It wouldn't be perfect at all. People who are alike never ought to marry. And, anyhow, they've never thought of such a thing."
"How do you know?"
"Because they are not in love. Any one can see that who sees them together. They are just good friends—and friendship is a very different thing from love."
Justin stared at her in amazement for a moment, then he threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, wise young woman," he said, "talk to me some more of love——"
"Who's talking of love?" asked Bobbie, coming up.
"Bobbie doesn't think of anything else," said Justin; "only he's never sure of its object. Last month it was Sara, and now it is Doris—next week it will be——"
"Next week," said Bobbie, firmly, "it will be Doris,—and the next and the next—and always——"
They were on the porch now—the wide porch with its rugs and low wicker chairs, its gay striped awning and its bowls of white and purple lilacs.
Sophie was waiting for them, and Justin greeted her with all the light carelessness gone from his voice.
"Dear lady, it is good to see you again, but hard to see this," and his eyes went to her black gown.
Her lips were tremulous. "I know. But when I meet people who knew him, it does not make me sad; it makes me glad because all of his friends are my good friends."
"There are two men whom I always place side by side as peers; one is Anthony Blake and the other your husband. The surgeon and the scientist——"
"Yes," she said, "and they never met. But Diana knew him—and loved him."
"And she loves—Anthony——"
Mrs. Martens gave him a startled look. "Hush," she said. "Oh, no, you mustn't think that."
"Perhaps she doesn't realize," he said, slowly, "but the world can see it with half an eye. And everybody knows Anthony's devotion."
He stopped short as Diana appeared in the doorway. She wore white lace, with a crescent of pearls set just above the parting of her dark hair.
Justin was on his feet in a moment. "Diana, the huntress," he said. "You shouldn't appear like that suddenly on a moonlight night unless you want to be worshiped as a goddess——"
Diana laughed. "Please don't call me 'the huntress' again. It has a sort of 'woman still pursued him' sound."
Justin, with Diana, was his light mocking self. With Bettina he had been self-conscious, with Sophie tenderly sympathetic—but Diana played up, as it were, to his boyish attitude of adoration.
"Are we all here but Anthony?" she asked, with her eyes sweeping the length of the porch where the guests had gathered. "He's probably looking after somebody with appendicitis, or with a broken arm——"
"No, he isn't." Bettina spoke with the assurance of direct knowledge. "This time it is a man's nose; it had to be sewed up."
She shivered as she said it, and her audience roared.
"I'm glad it's not Bobbie's nose," said Justin, "it's the only really handsome feature he possesses isn't it, Doris?"
The blushing Doris murmured inarticulately. She thought Bobbie beautiful, and wondered why any one should designate his nose so explicitly.
Diana regretted that she had not warned Bettina against such assumption of intimacy with Anthony. If people were not to know of the engagement, it was not well—
But Anthony had come, perfectly groomed, from the tips of his white shoes to the top of his head, and presently he was bending over her hand, and saying, pleasantly, "It's a jolly lot of us you've got together, Di. Did I keep you waiting?"
"If you had, it wouldn't be me, but Delia, to whom you'd have to apologize. She's the real head of the house, you know."
Justin took Bettina out, Anthony took Sophie, and one of the married men Diana. At the table Bettinasat between the other married man and Justin, much to her discomfort, for she craved the seat next to the doctor, where perchance she might slip her fingers into his; he seemed so far away, and they were all strangers.
But no one could be shy with Justin. "Of course we're going to be great friends," he said.
Bettina eyed him doubtfully.
"Why?" she asked.
Here at least was no meek surrender to his charms, and Justin girded himself for the flirtation.
"Well, I'm Diana's friend," he ventured.
"Yes?"
"Isn't that reason enough?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I like to choose my friends for myself."
"Won't you choose me?"
She smiled up at him. "Of course; don't be silly."
After that they got on famously. Justin exerted himself to please, and Bettina, with shining eyes, laughed softly in response to his clever wit.
Sara Duffield watched and wondered. Justin had of late seemed her especial property. Yet she hadheard him offer to take this strange young woman in his aeroplane, and he had never taken Sara.
"Who is she?" Sara asked of Bobbie, who was next to her.
"A friend of Diana's. She has been looking after her sick mother for a year. Then Mrs. Dolce died, and Diana asked the girl here. She's a beauty, isn't she?"
"Yes," said Sara, who, in certain shimmering greens and blues, looked like a shining little peacock, an effect which was further emphasized by a slender feather caught by an emerald which she wore in her black hair. "Where did she live before she came to Diana?"
"In the top of the Lane mansion."
"The Lane mansion." Sara's tone was scornful. "But it's an awful old place——"
"I fancy they didn't have much money. But she doesn't need it, not with that face."
"Doris had better look out," said Sara, unpleasantly.
"Doris?" Bobbie's round young face grew red. "Doris is the last one, Sara, and there won't be any other. You and Justin can just let that subject alone."
Sara shrugged her shoulders, and returned to her survey of Bettina. "I wonder where she got that stunning gown, if she's so poor. It's straight from Paris."
"Oh, you women," Bobbie exploded, and rested his eyes on Doris, across the table, and the thought of her gentleness was like soothing balm in contrast to Sara's sharpness.
After dinner Diana sang. She sat at the piano, which was placed just within the door of the unlighted music room, and her guests grouped themselves on the porch outside.
She gave them, first, a little German serenade, then a gay bit of Paris music-hall frivolity, and finally her fingers strayed into the accompaniment of a song which she had written for Anthony. It was called "The Wind From the Sea," and it had a haunting refrain.
Music_score
Diana's thrilling voice rose and fell with the beating cadences. She had sung the song for Anthony on the night before she sailed for Berlin, and when she had finished he had made once more his insistent plea, and she had said, "Wait."
Bettina, next to Anthony, in a corner of the porch, had had a rapturous moment when he had murmured, "How lovely you are to-night," and had laid his hand over hers in the darkness.
But as Diana sang, her joy was suddenly shadowed. Why was Diana singing things that seemed to drag the heart out of one, and why had Anthony taken his hand away, and why was he so still?
Even as she questioned the search-light from the little ferry that plied between the Head and the Neck sent a shaft of blinding radiance across the harbor. Bettina caught a glimpse of her lover's face, and of the longing look in his eyes as they rested on Diana.
Why did Anthony look at Diana like that?
As the insistent question obsessed her, Bettina was conscious of no feeling of jealousy. Her faith in Anthony made impossible any thought that his heart was not wholly hers. She merely coveted the look in his eyes as they rested on another woman.
"Of course it's just the way she sings," she told herself, restlessly. "Why, it almost makes me cry."
The music ceased abruptly, and Diana sat very still in the darkness.
It was Sophie's voice which broke the silence.
"Betty, dear, haven't you a song for us?"
"No," came the response from the far corner. "Dad sang. I can only dance."
"Really?" Justin was on his feet at once. "If you'll dance, we will light all the candles in the music room."
Bettina came forward. "It's an interpretive dance. Can you play the 'Spring Song,' Diana?"
Sophie, observing anxiously, wondered what further test would try her friend. But she saw no sign of an emotion which had to do with a night when Diana had waited in the moonlight for the lover who belonged to another woman, as with firm touch she played the first chords of the rippling melody.
And Bettina danced.
Justin, watching her, thought of lilacs blown by light breezes, of clouds on a May morning, of the drift of white petals from blossoming trees. Was she a woman or a wraith, this slender thing swaying in the candle-light?
Anthony watched, too, leaning back, tired, in his chair.
Diana watched, and asked herself, "Can any man resist such youth and beauty?"
And Sophie watched, and said to herself, out of the pity of her great and loving heart, "She is such a child—and things are going to be hard for her."
When Bettina finished, she went straight back to Anthony. "Did you like it?" she demanded.
But his answer was lost in the applause which forced her to face the rest of them, and explain:
"Dad taught me. He loved beauty, and he felt that the dance was beauty in motion."
"Sit here by me," urged Justin, in a wheedling tone, and placed a chair for her.
Bettina yearned wistfully for her corner and Anthony, but Sara was there now, and her light hard laugh floated out to them.
"I think I'm tired," said Bettina, as she dropped into the chair, and Justin, the much sought after Justin, looked at her with chagrin.
"Are you tired of me?" he asked in an injured voice.
She shook her head. "No—but it's been an exciting day."
Somewhere back in the house the telephone rang, and presently Delia came out for the doctor. "You're wanted at the Neck, sir," she said; "it's the old gentleman with the pneumonia."
As Anthony went to answer the call, the other guests said their farewells.
Justin reproached Bettina. "You haven't been a bit good to me; if I come again will you talk to me?"
Bettina smiled. "I'll let you talk to me."
"When?"
She turned to Sophie. "When shall I let him come?"
"He'll see you to-morrow on Bobbie's boat," said Sophie; "he wants us for lunch——"
"Till to-morrow, then," said Justin, and bent over her hand; then he ran down the porch steps to Sara, who was waiting with her head held high.
When Anthony came back from the telephone Bettina said, mournfully, "Now you must go, and I haven't talked to you for a single minute."
He looked down into the wistful face, and hesitated, then he asked, "Would you like to ride with me over to the Neck? It won't take long, but you'd have time to tell me all about your beautiful day."
She was radiant at once.
"Of course I can go."
"Take my cloak," said Sophie; "the long black one; it's warmer, and the air is cool."
Diana, returning from a conference with Delia, asked, "Where's Betty?"
"Gone for a little ride with Anthony."
"But, Sophie, what will people say—at this hour?"
"I told her to wear my black cloak," said Sophie; "it's less conspicuous, and she was so eager."
Diana stood very still in the darkness. How she coveted the intimacy of the little car! She had ridden so often with Anthony, and he never talked so well as when driving; he never revealed so fully the depth and fineness of his great nature. Would he reveal himself to Bettina? Would he? And was she shut out from his life forever?
She went up-stairs slowly. "You wait for them, Sophie," she said. "I'm tired—it's been a hard day——"
"Poor dear." Sophie stood looking up at her from the foot of the stairs. "I'll come up and rub your head presently."
"It isn't my head," Diana answered over her shoulder.
"Poor dear," said Sophie again, softly, and saw with anxious eyes the droop of the ascending figure in the white gown.
An hour later Bettina came.
"We rode across the causeway, and down the shore drive. It was beautiful and Anthony is going to take me again. It's been such a lovely, lovely day, Mrs. Martens."
All the doubts of the early evening had been swept away, and Bettina was triumphantly happy.
When they reached the second floor, she stopped outside of Diana's room.
"Good-night, dear lady," she called softly, with her lips against the door.
"Good-night," came faintly, then after a moment, "dear child."
But Diana did not open the door.
When Sophie, having donned a smoke-gray kimono and brushed her shining hair, went down to Diana, she expected to find her pensive. She found her, instead, with various little white jars and silver bottles set before her on her dressing table.
"When a woman takes to cold cream, Sophie," she remarked, as her friend came in, "it's a deadly sign. It shows that she has found her first wrinkle."
"Diana, how can you! You know that you are beautiful without such aids."
"When I was in Paris," Diana continued, "I was persuaded into buying these. I was told that they held the secret of perpetual youth."
"Perpetual youth is from the heart, Diana."
"Then my heart is as old as the ages."
Diana was gazing into the mirror, which reflected her tired face.
"I can't think of anything but that child, dancing in the candle-light. Oh, youth, youth, Sophie; is there anything like it in the whole wide world!"
"Diana," Sophie's voice was sharpened by her solicitude, "come away from that mirror."
Diana obediently turned her back on her dressing table, and presently she said, "I wonder if it was wise to have her here?"
"Bettina?"
"Yes."
Sophie was thoughtful. "I'm not sure. Yet it seemed to me to-night that perhaps—you had been wise——"
"What made you think that?"
"Anthony's face when you played, Diana."
"Oh!" Diana crossed the room and dropped down on the rug at her friend's feet. "Tell me how he looked," she said, softly, with her arm outflung across the other's knees.
"It was just in a flash that I saw his face—under the search-light from the ferry. It was the face of a man who had lost the one woman in the world for him, Diana."
"If I could believe that," said Diana, tensely, "nothing else would matter."
"Yet, believing it, how can it be right for him to marry some one else?"
Diana, with her chin propped between her hands, stared with wide eyes into space. "It isn't right—but she loves him, Sophie."
"Yet she's not the one woman—oh, what a muddle, Diana."
"What a muddle," and for a time they sat in silence.
Then Sophie said, "Perhaps it's because I was so happy in my marriage—that I can see so clearly. I've worked it out this way, dearest, dear—that in all the world there's just one woman for one man. If he meets and marries her, no matter how hard their life may be, they will be drawn together, not separated, by the hardness; no matter how the world may use them, they will cling together against the world. But when a man marries the wrong woman, he goes through life a half-man, crippled in mind and spirit, because of his mistake. Sometimes the man finds the one woman in a second marriage; sometimes he finds her too late; sometimes he is too blind to know that she is the one woman, and he lets her go, to discover afterward that no other can fill his life. That's the pity of it. If Anthony marriesBettina, she will know some day—that she is—the wrong woman——"
Diana rose and moved restlessly about the room. "But she's so slim and white and young—and no man can resist that sort of thing long. She has youth to give him, Sophie, and I, why, soon I'll be middle-aged."
"You—oh, Diana——"
Diana's laugh had a sob in it. "Well, I shall be."
"You'll never be anything but lovely—when you're an old lady you'll be stately and distinguished, and your eyes will shine like stars, and men will still fall in love with you——"
"Oh, Sophie, you're such a comfort——"
The next morning Delia sent up three breakfasts on trays.
"If it wasn't for that pretty child," she said to little Jane Trefry, who helped her in the kitchen, "there wouldn't be any satisfaction in getting things ready. Miss Sophie has learned foreign ways and wants rolls and coffee, and Miss Diana wants grape fruit. I don't know what's the matter with her appetite; she hasn't eaten enough for a bird since she came, and yet that first night she said to me, 'Oh,Delia, I'm just dying for some of your good New England cooking!'"
"Maybe she's in love," said little Jane, who was romantic.
Delia turned her omelette deftly. "Of course she is. Everybody knows she just about worships Dr. Blake, only she won't marry him till she gets good and ready. That's the house he's building for her—up the road, with the red-tiled roof and the wide stone porches. He had the window of her room toward Minot's, so that the light could say, 'I love you' to her at night."
"She'd better look out," stated little Jane, with provincial frankness; "if she waits too long he'll be finding some one else to say 'I love you' to."
"You keep your mind on that toast," Delia was dishing up the omelette, "and don't you forget that Miss Diana isn't the kind that a man goes back on. She could have had a dozen richer men than the doctor. But she didn't want them, and maybe she doesn't want him, but don't you get it into your head that he wants anybody else."
Little Jane sniffed. "You can't tell about men," she said, as she went out of the door with Bettina's tray.
Bettina, sitting up in bed, welcomed little Jane with enthusiasm. She ate everything from strawberries to omelette with a hearty appetite, then she lay comfortably, looking out toward the eastern horizon where the smoky streak of a steamer showed faintly.
Presently Sophie came in with a gown of white serge—of simple lines, with wide collar and cuffs of sheer embroidered muslin. "Diana insisted that I should get some white things in Paris," she said, as she laid it over a chair. "She hoped that I might be induced to dress in something besides black, but I can't, and so I am sure that you will be willing to wear these out for me, my dear."
Bettina put one bare foot on the floor, then the other, then she fluttered across the room like a white butterfly and embraced Mrs. Martens.
"It's lovely, only it doesn't seem quite right for me to take everything."
"It is right. They would lie in my trunks until they were out of fashion. There's a white felt hat that goes with this, and a long white coat, and Diana is going to take you over to town this morning to get white shoes and gloves and a veil."
"I thought we were to lunch on Bobbie Tucker's yacht."
"We were—but Bobbie has just telephoned that his yacht has to go to the yard for repairs—something happened last night—so Justin will take us for a ride."
"Oh," said Bettina. "Mr. Ford?"
"Yes. Justin has put his car at our disposal. He'll drive us to-day, but when he can't there's the chauffeur—it's very kind of him."
"He's awfully good looking," said Bettina in a cool little voice, "but don't you think he's terribly conceited, Mrs. Martens?"
Sophie nodded. "He's been spoiled. But back of it all he's a man. His lightness is on the surface. I know, for he was in Berlin when my husband was living. I saw the other side then. He was poor; it was before he came so unexpectedly into his uncle's money. You know the old man and his son were drowned in a dreadful accident. Justin was studying aviation when we first knew him. He lived in shabby rooms, and ate at shabby little places, and he used to come in the afternoons to call on me, and I'd fill him up with thick bread and butter and coffee, and we'd talk for hours of America. He was lonelypoor lad, and I was like a big sister. I shall never forget one bitter cold afternoon, when he came in with his hands all red and rough, and with a hoarse cough, and I had the maid bring him a bowl of soup hot from the kitchen, and he tried to make a joke of it, but his voice broke, and presently he said, 'Dear big sister, some day I can thank you, but not now.'
"And when my husband died," she went on, softly, "he did thank me in a most generous way. He had just received his fortune when he heard of my—trouble. He sent a wonderful cross to mark where my husband sleeps—and I could have afforded only a little stone—and there are flowers every week, even when I am far away, and there will always be flowers because of his great generosity."
Here was a background for the light-hearted young Justin which appealed to Bettina's imagination. "Why, how lovely," she said with her eyes shining; "he didn't seem like that to me. He seemed so—shallow."
"But he isn't," Sophie defended; "if it had not been for him and for Diana I should have lost heart many times—the world knows Justin as a rich young man, ready for a good time, but I know him as the Knight of the Tender Heart."
"How old is he?"
"Twenty-six. I didn't realize until I reached here that he was flying again. He does such dangerous things. I saw the aeroplane yesterday morning, and found out afterward that he was up—and since then my heart seems to stop every time I think of him in the air——"
With all the optimism of youth, Bettina tried to reassure her.
"He said last night that he was very careful. He wants to take me up."
"Oh, don't ever do anything so dreadful."
"I couldn't if I wanted to. Anthony made me promise last night that I wouldn't——"
She said it with a comfortable sense of her lover's care for her; "I'd rather ride any day with Anthony in his little car."
"My dear," Sophie said with some hesitation, "I'm going to suggest that except to Diana and myself, you try not to seem too much interested in—your doctor—the world might suspect—and you don't want to announce your engagement yet, Diana tells me——"
Bettina shrugged her white shoulders. "I don't care if everybody knows," she said; "but Dianathought that Anthony's friends might like to get acquainted with me first. But if you could know what he's been to me, Mrs. Martens—why, when I waked this morning it seemed like a dream to think that I wasn't in the top floor of the old Lane house, with Miss Matthews making her breakfast coffee over an alcohol stove, and a little impatient because I hadn't the toast ready, and with the prospect ahead of me of another lonely day, when I should try to read and try not to think, and miss mother until I nearly died.
"Do you wonder that I love him?" She came up to Mrs. Martens and put her hands on her shoulders. "He's so wonderful and good—and he loves me——"
Sophie could not meet the frank young eyes. "It's nice that you feel that way," she said, "and I hope you don't mind what I said—it was only that it might save you some future—embarrassment."
"I'll be careful," said Bettina, "only I'm perfectly sure that everybody will know every time I look at Anthony that he's the one man in the world for me. You can't imagine how uninteresting other men seem beside him—and then his manner, isn't it lovely and protecting and—sure?"
Sophie had a sudden sense of the comedy which was intermingled with the tragic of the situation.Diana and Bettina each harped incessantly on one string, "Anthony, Anthony, Anthony," and she must play listener to their ecstatic songs of praise.
During the trip to town, Bettina sat beside Justin.
"Since Bobbie's yacht is out of commission," suggested Justin, "why not extend our ride up the North Shore road? There's a war-ship anchored just off Beverly, and a tea room where we can have lunch."
"I must stop at the sanatorium first," said Diana. "Anthony has a patient there who is to be operated on. She's a little young thing, and she's afraid, and I want to take her some lilacs. I told Jane to pick some and have them ready when we returned, so perhaps you'd better go first to our house, and then to the sanatorium, then we can do as we please——"
"A sanatorium," said Justin to Bettina, "always used to suggest vague horrors. But Dr. Anthony's doesn't. He has a wonderful way with his patients, puts their hands to work, because it's their minds that make them sick; they weave and make pottery. The last time I was there an anxious-eyed, beautifully-gowned woman was working on a rug, with three rabbits as a design. She was having trouble with the bunnies' ears when Dr. Blake came up.
"'I simply can't do it, doctor,' she said, and began to cry.
"Anthony stood very still for a moment, then in his quiet, strong voice, he said, 'Dear lady, it must be done—for your soul's sake.'
"She looked up at him in a startled way. 'Why my soul?' she asked. 'It's my body that's sick.'
"He shook his head. 'It's deeper than that,' he answered; 'you've lost your grip because life has never meant labor to you. The people who work have healthy minds and healthy bodies. Those who do not, waver between weakness and wickedness. That's what's the matter with society to-day—that's what's the matter with you. You must finish your bunnies' ears, therefore, for the sake of your soul—your body will respond——'
"She went back to her loom," Justin continued, "with a different look on her face. The lines were smoothed out from her forehead. Neither of them had seemed to notice that I was there. It was a psychological moment when the doctor had to speak, and it was wonderful to hear him talk like that."
Bettina's puzzled eyes met his. "Oh, but do you think that people have to work to be happy?" she said. "I hate work. I like to be warm and comfortable, and have pretty clothes, and—everything."
"Of course you do," said Justin, responding to her mood, lightly, "but you don't want to get Dr. Blake after you—he preaches a gospel of endeavor."
"Oh!" There was a note of dismay in Bettina's voice. "But not all of us can be bees. Some of us must be the butterflies."
Justin spoke, somewhat seriously: "I've been a butterfly for three years, and I give you my word I'm not getting much out of it. Seeing Mrs. Martens has brought back the days when I worked over there in Germany to get the money to finish my studies. Has she told you how I used to go to her and drink her delicious coffee and eat thick bread and butter, and bask in her sympathy until I got the courage to go on again? Yet I felt all the time that I was getting somewhere, and here I'm stagnating——"
Bettina settled herself back comfortably in her cushioned seat. "Well, I don't think it's anything to worry about. It seems perfectly wonderful to me not to have anything to do—if I had mother back," her voice trembled, "I wouldn't care how much I had to work for her—but after she—left me, everything seemed so—so sordid, and hard—and——Oh, I hated it—and then——" She drew herself up sharply.
"Then——?" Justin prompted her.
"Diana came," she went on, after a moment's hesitation, "and now everything will be different."
Justin had a baffled sense of some mystery from the solution of which he was shut out, but he merely said, heartily, "I hope you'll stay forever," and felt his heart leap as the ends of her white veil fluttered against his lips.
Anthony's sanatorium was an enlargement of an old mansion which had belonged to his grandfather. The wide green lawns swept down to the sea. There was an orchard to the left of the house, and to the right a rose garden, and the barn had been turned into a weaving room.
Within the house everything was restful and harmonious. Money had been spent without stint to produce beauty in its most subtle expression; each window framed a view of sea or sky or of sunlighted trees; the walls, the hangings, the rugs were of that ashes-of-rose tint which give light to an interior without glare.
Diana, entering, with her arms full of lilacs, was met by a nurse.
"Dr. Blake wants you at once," she said; "he's in his office."
"Take these, Betty." Diana thrust the lilacs into the girl's arms. "Perhaps you'd better go backand sit in the car with Justin and Sophie, or you can wait in the reception room. I won't be long."
But she was longer than she had anticipated. The seconds lengthened into minutes, and the minutes in quarters and into half hours. Justin came in once and found Bettina sitting stiffly on the edge of a chair with the flowers in her arms.
"Come out and we'll take a spin across the causeway, while we wait," he said.
Bettina shook her head. "Diana said she wouldn't be long. I don't see what's keeping her."
"There's that operation this morning, you know, on the girl with appendicitis. And Diana has always been a great help with Anthony's patients. He told me that when she went to Europe her loss was felt deeply here——"
"But the girl—with appendicitis?" Bettina's face was white. "Is she afraid——?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I should be afraid. I—I don't see how Anthony can do it."
"Do what?"
"Operate on such a little scared thing——" She was shivering.
"You mustn't stay here," Justin insisted; "you'llget nervous, you know, and all that; you really mustn't stay—you weren't made to have your mind on such things."
"But Diana's mind is on them."
"Diana is—different."
That Diana was different was being demonstrated at that very moment in an upper room, where a little white slip of a girl had welcomed her with a wailing cry—"I'm afraid."
"My dear," Diana bent over the bed, "there's nothing to be afraid of, not with your doctor."
"But—if I should die."
"You're not going to die."
"But how do you know?"
"Because your good doctor has said so—and he knows——"
"But sometimes people do—die."
Diana signed to the nurse to go out, and then she knelt by the bed.
"Dear child," she said, softly, "life is such a short journey for all of us, and beyond is a wonder land. When I was a little girl I used to wish that I might die, and I thought that my lonely little soul might sail and sail in a silver boat until I came to the shores of that far country where I should find myfather and mother waiting. I was such a dreary little orphan, and I wanted love. And I knew that in that country Love waited for me—as it is waiting for you. Would it be so hard to go after all the pain, if Love willed it so?"
"I hadn't thought of it that way."
"Then think of it now. But most of all think of life, and of what it will mean to you when wise Dr. Blake has made you well. And think of this, too, that when you wake up from your long sleep there will be a bunch of white lilacs right here on this little table—to welcome you back to the world—will you promise to think of the white lilacs until you go to sleep?"
She was talking against time, trying to get the tense look out of the girl's eyes. And now she was rewarded by the lowered lids and the relaxing of the little figure in her arms.
"I am going to think of the lilacs," the girl whispered. "Are you very sure they will be there?"
"Very sure, dear."
"Then I'm ready——"
Diana, going out, met Anthony.
"She's all right," she said. "I'm glad you had me come.
"She confided in me at once. She just needed her mind diverted, and I turned it on white lilacs. I will have a bunch for her when she wakes, and she is going to think of them. Is there really any danger, Anthony?"
"Scarcely any—and there was no choice. She couldn't live without it."
"How wonderful that you can save life, Anthony."
"In saving others I save myself, Diana. It has kept me in these later years from—chaos——"
Something in his voice made Diana say, quickly, "Betty is down-stairs. Poor child, she has waited for a long time. Can you come down?"
"No. She ought not to be here, Diana."
"She would come. I think she hoped to see you. And why shouldn't she come? Your work is here."
"She isn't fitted for it. She is born for the brightness of life, not for its shadows. I fancy if she could see me in my operating outfit that she'd look upon me as something between a brute and a butcher. Poor child!" His laugh was grim.
Diana's progress down the corridor partook of the nature of an ovation. From one room to another she went, and was welcomed by patients, many of whom made periodical visits to "Harbor Light"—which was the picturesque name Anthony had given his house because, as he explained, it was to be a beacon to such derelicts as drifted there. There were men and women of wealth who came to be fortified for another season of excitement, and there were men and women to whom the doctor gave lodging and his skill without financial recompense. But no one knew to whom such charity was extended, and all were equal in care and treatment.
Most of the nurses, too, had been there long enough to know the inspiration and uplift which was brought by the gracious lady in the white gown.
When the patients asked, "Who is she?" the reply was whispered, "Diana Gregory. Everybody hopes she'll marry the doctor. He's dead in love with her."
At last Diana slipped away, promising to come again soon to look at the weaving, to see the new pottery—
"But not now," she insisted, brightly; "there's some one waiting for me down-stairs."
She found Bettina still sitting stiffly on the edge of the chair. She had sent Justin back to Sophie, and a nurse had taken away the lilacs. All the gloryhad gone out of her morning when Anthony had asked for Diana.
"Why didn't he want me?" she demanded, when Diana came toward her with an eager apology. "Why didn't Anthony want me?"
"My dear, he always wants you, but there's an operation on now."
"On that girl with appendicitis?"
"Yes."
"Oh, how can he do it, Diana? I think it's dreadful—to—to hurt people——"
"He doesn't hurt them, dear."
"But it's horrid. I—I hate it."
"Betty!"
"I—I shan't ever let him talk about it to me." The child's breath was coming quickly. "Never—never—never, when we are married—and I'm going to make him give it up——"
"Give it up?" Diana's voice rang clear and sharp. "Give what up?"
"His surgery. I didn't mind the other—when he came to mother and gave her medicine in bottles—but this is different, and the women here——Why, Diana, some of them looked in at the door, and they were—freaks."
"They're sick, dear."
"I don't like sick things. I loved mother, and I could stand it, but Anthony mustn't let me see such people—not now, so soon after——!"
"Hush, Betty! Oh, you shouldn't have come in. We'll go now and have a long ride with Justin, and to-night you'll see Anthony—and some day you'll realize what a great man he is."
"I know he's a great surgeon, and, of course, I'll have to put up with it—but I shall hate it just the same, Diana."
Put up with it—oh, Diana! For years she had urged him toward this end, that he might stand at the head of that profession which combats death with a flaming sword. For years she had watched him struggle upward, and had gloried, not only in his fame, but in his power of healing.
Together the two women went down the path.
"Are you tired of waiting?" Diana asked as they came up to the car.
"Justin took me for a little ride," said Sophie, "and I sat in front with him. We tried to get Bettina to go, but she wouldn't. She thought she ought to wait for you."
"I wish I hadn't waited," said Bettina, as Justinhelped her in. "I—I don't like sick people, and I hate that queer smell——"
"Ether," said Justin, promptly; "it's because of the operation."
He leaned forward, and the car shot out toward the causeway. The way led first through a street overarched with elms; beyond the elms there was a vista of sea and sky. A fragrant wind blew from the blossoming trees, and swept Bettina's veil away from her face so that it billowed above her hat like the wings of some great bird.
The hospital was behind; ahead was the long white road. Justin was smiling down into her eyes. For the first time she noticed his look of joyous youth.
"I begin to understand why it is that you fly," she said, as they came out upon the causeway and saw the stretch of harbor beyond.
"Why?"
"Because you feel that you must get up high enough to flap your wings."
"I could do that on a barn-yard fence, couldn't I—like Chantecler, and make the sun rise?"
"You could never get up early enough."
"I flew past your window at six."
"How did you know it was my window?"
Justin glanced down at her. Her soft white hat was pulled low, so that it almost hid her eyes, but through the veil he could see that they were softly shining. Her lips were red, and her cheeks touched by the wind with vivid color.
"I knew—because my heart told me," he said, ardently.
But she did not blush. "You knew it because you know which is Diana's guest room," she stated.
"Were you awake?"
"No. I am never awake at six—I love to be lazy."
"Don't tell that to Dr. Anthony or he'll set you to weaving. You know what I told you; he said that idleness leads to weakness or wickedness——"
"I haven't had time to see what it leads to," Bettina informed him. "I've always been so busy. I'm going to play for a while."
"Will you play with me?" Justin challenged her.
Shining eyes met shining eyes—youth responded to youth.
"It will be glorious," said Bettina, meeting his mood.
They laughed together, the care-free laughter of their golden age. Diana, catching the echo of it,waked from a reverie which had to do with Anthony back there in a big, bare room, contending with skilful and steady hands against the evil forces which sought to destroy; saving a life, giving to a little unknown girl a future of hope and of health.
Every breath that she had drawn since she had left him had been a prayer that his hand might not fail, that his nerves might be like steel—she felt as if her heart were beating with his to uphold him, as if she could bear him on the wings of love and be his talisman against harm.
Yet in front of her was the girl he was to marry, laughing lightly up into the eyes of a boy, unconscious of her lover's need, unconscious of everything except that she was young and free from care—and that the morning world was beautiful!
When the doctor came that night he was tired. The day had been a hard one, and he felt weighed down by the woes of those weak folk who bore so heavily on his strength.
He found Bettina alone. Diana and Sophie had gone to play bridge across the harbor, and only Delia in the garden and Peter Pan on the porch remained for chaperonage.
Bettina greeted her betrothed soberly, and held up her face to be kissed. "I said things about you yesterday," she confessed, as she and Anthony settled themselves on the porch where they could look out upon the lights. "I said things about you to Diana, and afterward we went to the Pirate House with Justin Ford for lunch, and I flirted with him——"
"What did you say about me?"
"That I hated your surgery—that it seemed dreadful."
He had been smiling, but he grew grave at once.
"You can't separate me from my work, child; you must take us together."
"Of course; I know that now. Diana was talking to me after we came home from our ride. She told me some of the wonderful things you had done, and of how people almost said their prayers to you."
"Not quite that—but it's my reward that so many of my patients are my friends because I have helped them."
"And Diana said that if I loved you I'd be glad—to let you—cut people up."
In spite of himself he laughed. She was irresistible.
"I shan't exact that of you. But at least you must not worry."
"And I won't have to live there?" anxiously.
"Where?"
"At the sanatorium?"
"Of course not. You'll live over there."
He pointed to a jutting rock on the top of which a big house loomed white in the moonlight.
"There? Oh, I'd love to go over it. Couldn't we, now?"
He hesitated. "Perhaps it would be better to wait till there are others." Then, seeing her disappointment, he agreed. "Well, if Delia will come too."
"Delia?"
"To open the rooms." He had not the heart to tell her how sharp were the tongues of the gossips of the little town.
So Delia, a little later, limped after them with Peter following, confidently.
"And you flirted with Justin," Anthony remarked on the way over.
"Yes. In the little tea room. Diana and Mrs. Martens sat at one table, and Mr. Ford and I at the other—and he was so funny—and I——Well,any onelooking on might have thought I was in earnest."
"What did Diana think?"
"Oh, she knows how I feel about you——"
"And Justin, does he know?"
"Of course not. It's not announced, you know."
"But if he should take you in earnest."
"Silly," Bettina tucked her hand in his arm, "nobody takes me in earnest—but you——"
Her hesitation was charming, but he did not respond ardently, and perhaps she missed something in his manner, for presently she asked, "Are you jealous?"
"My dear, no. Children must play——"
She sighed a little. "Am I such a child?"
He laughed again. "Of course, you're a mere baby—but a dear baby, Betty mine."
And with that she was content.
The big house was not furnished.
"I am going to put in the things which were in the old house before I turned it into a sanatorium. My grandfather was a sea captain, and I have a model of a ship carved by one of his sailors out of soup bones, and there are two great china tureens in the shape of swans, and some ivories and queer embroidered screens that I wouldn't take anything for. It's a sort of jumble for a modern residence, but I like it. And I have had the house built in a style which will be in keeping with my belongings. It's rocky and rugged and there's a fireplace in every room. I like to burn logs for cheerfulness even when there's a furnace—and to come home to the light of them on winter nights."
"I love pretty new things," Bettina informed him. "May I have all white for my room? With ivory things on my dresser with silver monograms, and—white fur rugs?"
Her room!
It came to Anthony, with the force of a blow, that there was no room in the big house for Bettina.
Why, that room was Diana's—that room which looked out on Minot's. He had thought of her as inhabiting it. He had never meant that the great light should say, "I love you," to Bettina.
For months, even when he felt that he had lost Diana, her spirit had seemed to dwell in the place he had planned for her. Whenever he had entered her room it had not seemed bare, for his imagination had filled it with the furniture which had been his grandmother's wedding set—the big canopied bed, the winged chair on the hearth, the quaint lyre-legged sewing table by the window. And on the other side of the hearth would be another chair—his own. And in that room he had seen Diana, his bride, in the moonlight; his wife, waiting in the winged chair to welcome him after a weary day.
And now this pretty child—and Diana banished? What had he done? What dreadful thing had he done?
Bettina, unconscious, said pleasant things about the living-room, the library, the great hall, the broad stairway—
As yet there was no connection for lighting, so they carried candles, Anthony holding one aloft for himself and Bettina, and Delia coming after with ataper. Peter, like a flash of flame, slipped ahead of Delia and was lost in the shadows.
They went into every room on the second floor before they entered the one which faced Minot's. To him it was the Holy of Holies, but Bettina stepped in boldly.
It was a great high-ceiled chamber with its distant corners made darker by the moonlight. Through the wide window which faced the south was a vast expanse of sky and sea. Anthony's house stood near the end of the harbor, so that across the causeway was the open water, a stretch of limitless blue.
Bettina shivered. "It's so big and dark."
"When it's furnished and the lights are on it will seem different."
Delia, arriving at that moment, added her contribution to the conversation.
"Miss Diana came over yesterday. Them's her white lilacs on the shelf."
The doctor held his candle higher. The flowers, in a great bowl of gray pottery, showed ghostly outlines beneath the flickering flame. To Anthony the air seemed thick and faint with their perfume.
"Let us go," he said to Bettina, quickly, and withhis hand on her arm he led her away and shut the door.
Diana and Sophie, coming home at half-past ten, found the lovers on the porch, and the four talked together until Anthony said "Good-bye."
He made a professional call in a side street and found himself, afterward, turning toward the big empty house on the rocks. In that south room Diana's lilacs were wasting their sweetness, and he coveted the subtle suggestion they gave of her presence there.
Diana, helping Delia to lock up, asked, "Where's Peter?"
"Goodness knows," said Delia; "he followed me when we went over to the doctor's house, and I ain't seen him since."
Diana turned and looked at her. "The doctor's house? Who went?"
"Dr. Anthony and Miss Betty and me. They asked me. She hadn't ever seen it, and he wanted to show it to her."
Diana felt her heart stand still.
"Did you go—into every room, Delia?"
"Yes."
So he had taken little Betty there. They had entered that room to which, that very morning, she had carried white lilacs, moved by some impulse to call it her own until some one else should have the right to claim it.
"I'll look up Peter," she told Delia, hastily. "You needn't wait for me."
The town clock struck half-past eleven as she went through the garden—wraith-like in her long white wrap.
"Peter," she called softly, "Peter, Peter."
Following the path over the rocks, she came at last to the empty house.
A faint mew sounded from within. She turned the knob, and found the door unlocked. "Peter," she called again, and the big cat came forth, his tail waving like a plume.
Diana, facing the darkness of the great hall, felt impelled to enter, to slip silently up the stairs, to stand on the threshold of the moonlighted chamber, whence came the perfume of white lilacs.
And as she stood there, she saw, with a sudden leap of the heart, that Anthony was before her. Silhouetted against the wide space of the open window he was looking out at the flashing light.
She put her hand to her throat. She stepped backas if to escape. Then, swayed by an impulse which cast prudence to the winds, she spoke his name.
"Anthony!"
"Diana!"
He had turned from the window, and was peering through the dimness. He came toward her. She held out her hands to keep him back.
"Oh, please—no—no——"
But he took her in his arms.
When he let her go his face was white.
"There is no excuse for me," he said. "I know that. I've given my word of honor to that little child—who trusts me. Yet—this room belongs to you. Before you came to-night I touched the lilacs with my lips, and it seemed to me as if they were your lips—that I touched. And when I turned and saw you—white—like a bride—on the threshold—it was as I had seen you, night after night—in my dreams. You belong here and no other, Diana!"