Glory of Youth | Page 9

like her," he had said, eagerly, with a man's blundering confidence, "and you can help her. She is very lonely, Diana--and I was lonely----"
That had been the one shred of apology which he had vouchsafed for the act which had spoiled their lives.
When he had first entered the moonlighted room, she had turned from the piano and had held out her hands to him.
He had taken them, and had stood looking down at her, with eyes which spoke what his lips would not say.
And at last he had asked, "Why didn't you marry that fellow in Berlin, Di?"
"Because I didn't love him, Anthony. I found out just in time--and I found out, too, just in time that--it was you--Anthony."
Then he had said, "Hush," and had dropped her hands, and after a long time, he had spoken. "Di, I've asked another woman to marry me, and she has said, 'Yes.'"
Out of a stunned silence she had whispered. "How--did it happen?"
"Don't ask me--it is done--and it can't be undone--we have made a mess of things, Diana----"
He gave the bare details; of the sick mother who had crept back after years of absence to die in her own town, of the girl and her loneliness, of her child-like faith in him.
When he had finished, she had laid her hand on his arm. "But do you love her, do you really love her, Anthony?" had been her desolate demand.
He had drawn back, and not meeting her eyes, had said, very low, "You haven't the right to ask that question, Di, or I to answer it----"
And in that moment she had realized that the barrier which separated herself and Anthony was high enough to shut out happiness.
"Oh--oh." As Diana's thoughts came back to the present, she sat up in bed and wept helplessly. "Oh, I don't know what I am going to do, Sophie. I've always been so self-sufficient, and now it seems as if my whole world revolves about one man----"
Never before had Diana, self-contained Diana, talked to her friend of the things which lay deep beneath the surface, but now she revealed her soul to the little woman who had known love in all its fulfilment, and who, having lost that love, still lived.
"What you must do," said Sophie, softly, "is to face it. You've got to look at the thing squarely, dearest-dear. It is because you and Anthony forgot to keep burning the sacred fires that this trouble has come upon you."
"What do you mean, Sophie?"
"When two people love each other," said Sophie, slowly, "it is a wonderful thing, a sacred thing, Diana. What you gave Ulric was not love--you were fascinated for the moment, and when you found him disappointing, you let him go lightly, yet all the time, deep in your heart, was this great Anthony--is it not so, my Diana?"
"Yes," the other whispered, with her face hidden.
"And Anthony, when he thought he had lost you, took this little girl to fill your place--and she can never fill it, and so because each of you has made of love a light thing, you must have your punishment. We must reap what we sow, Diana.
"Don't think I am not sympathetic, liebchen," she went on, "but, oh, Diana, I'd rather see you this way than with Ulric Van Rosen as your lover."
She knelt by the bed with her arms about her friend. Two years before Diana had comforted Sophie when death had claimed the great-hearted husband who had made the little woman's life complete. Since then they had clung together, and there had developed in Sophie an almost maternal devotion for the brilliant girl who had hitherto moved through life triumphant and serene.
Delia, at the door, presented a worried face. "I've got some milk toast for Miss Diana," she explained, "and your breakfast is waiting for you, Miss Sophie----"
"Breakfast," Diana pushed back the brown brightness of her hair and laughed hysterically; "is that the way the world must go on for me now, Sophie? You know--for you've been through it--must I eat and drink and be merry when my heart is--broken----?"
"Hush." Again she was in Sophie's arms. "Delia will hear."
But Delia's imagination had not grasped the possibility of any mental or spiritual disturbance. "I guess she's got one of her mother's headaches," she said, as she edged herself further into the room. "I always knew she'd have them some day--although up to now she's been perfectly well."
"Set the tray on the table, Delia," Mrs. Martens spoke over her shoulder, "and I'll come down presently--and you might go up and get Peter. I think I shut the door as I came out----"
Delia took the hint. "There's broiled fish and waffles," she complained, as she departed, "and they don't taste any better for waiting."
"You go down, Sophie," said Diana, when they were alone--"and I'll