Glory of Youth | Page 7

and went away with his pulses pounding.
All the way home he thought of her. She had been charming. He felt like an adventuring knight, who, having killed all the dragons, rescues the captive princess from her tower. She was a dear child. A dear--child.
At the sanatorium he had a bath and a good dinner, and made his rounds. One little woman, when he had passed, spoke to another of his smile. "It is as if he were happy in his heart," she said, quaintly; "before this his eyes have been sad."
Later the doctor found time to read his mail. On the top of the pile of letters was a thick one in a gray envelope addressed in feminine script. He opened it and read eagerly. Then he sat very still, trying, amid all the beating agony of emotion, to grasp the truth as she had told it. Diana was free. Her engagement was broken. She was coming back to America. "I am coming home to the big house--and to you--Anthony." And she would be there in just ten days!
CHAPTER III
IN WHICH DIANA REAPS
All the way down in the train Diana kept saying to her friend, "I am so glad you are going to see my house, Sophie. You can't imagine how lovely it is."
But even then Mrs. Martens was not prepared. She was given a room on the third floor from which glass doors opened on a little balcony which overhung the harbor. It was like the upper deck of a ship with the open sea to the right and left, and with a strip of green peninsula cutting into it beyond the causeway.
"That's the Neck," Diana explained; "the yacht clubs are over there and some hotels and big houses. But I like it on this side, in the town. It's so quaint and lovely. I'll show you some of it to-morrow morning."
"I'm not going anywhere to-morrow morning. I am going to sleep until noon."
Diana bent and kissed her. "Poor thing, is she tired?"
"Dead."
"Well, I won't wake you. But I am going to be up with the dawn, Sophie."
Mrs. Martens turned and looked at her. "Is Anthony here?"
"Yes."
Diana caught her breath as she said it, and the two friends stood, silently, looking over the harbor.
The twilight was taking the blue out of the water, but the beauty was still there--with the lights on the anchored boats twinkling like stars in the grayness, and the lighthouse making a great moon above them.
"When will you see him, Diana?"
"To-night."
"Then I'm going to bed."
"You're not--I want you to meet him, Sophie."
"You want him every bit for yourself. Don't be a hypocrite, Diana."
Diana laid her hands on Sophie's shoulders and shook her a little, laughing.
"Sophie, do you ever feel so young that you are almost wild with it--as if there hadn't been any years since you wore pinafores and pigtails?"
"No--I'm thirty-five, Diana."
"Don't shout it from the housetops. I'm a very few years behind. What a lot of wasted years, Sophie."
"It's your own fault, Diana."
"But I wanted to be free----"
"And now you are longing for your prison----"
"With Anthony--yes."
"You'd better go down and dress, dear. Put on that pale blue, with your pearls, Diana. It fits in with the moonlight."
"Then you won't come down?"
"No. I'll have Peter for company."
Peter Pan was Diana's cat. He was as yellow as a harvest moon, he was fed on fish, and was of a prodigious fatness. During Diana's sojourn abroad he had been looked after by Delia Hobbs.
Delia was Diana's housekeeper. She had a lame hip and a lovely mind. She went up to Mrs. Martens' room after Diana had left to see if the little lady was comfortable for the night.
She eyed Peter Pan, who was in the middle of the big bed.
"Peter," she said, severely, "that's no place for you."
Peter rolled over, and clawed the lace spread luxuriously.
"Shall I take him off, ma'am?" Delia asked.
"It's nice to have him here," said Mrs. Martens, doubtfully, "but perhaps I ought not to let him stay. You know best, Delia."
Delia, a little flattered by such deference, hesitated. "I might bring his basket up here," she said; "he isn't a bit of trouble. He just goes to sleep and doesn't wake up until morning."
As Delia opened the door to go down, the rippling measures of "The Spring Song," played softly, came up to them. Sophie had a vision of Diana in her shimmering gown, waiting in the moonlight for Anthony.
Delia came back with the basket. It was of brown wicker with brown cushions. Peter, curled up in it, made a sunflower combination.
"You are sure you're all right, Miss Sophie?" Delia asked as she stood on the threshold. "If you don't want the electric light, there's a candle on your table, and if you like the air straight from the sea you can open