Glory of Youth | Page 7

little captain; "men won't wait
forever."
"Men like Anthony Blake," returned Miss Matthews with conviction,
"will. And as for Bettina, she's nothing but a child!"
The little captain carried the conversation over, tactfully, to his favorite
topic. "I want you and that Betty child to go with me for a day's fishin'
soon," he said; "you just name the day."
Little Miss Matthews hated the sea, with the hatred of a woman whose
ancestors had made their living on the Banks and had been drowned in
storms. But she liked the captain. "I am sure you are very kind," she
said, primly, "but it will have to be Saturday when there isn't any
school."

"All right," said the captain,--"make it a week from Saturday, and we'll
probably have clearing weather."
The doctor, going down, met little Miss Matthews. Bettina, leaning
over the rail, greeted the little lady somewhat self-consciously. "I'll
make your tea in a minute," she said; "the doctor didn't want any."
When Anthony reached the bottom of the stair, he looked up. The faint
light of the lantern drew a circle of radiance about Bettina's head.
"Wait," she called softly, and came down to him, and in the darkness
whispered that she was happy, so very happy--and would she see him
soon?
"To-morrow," he promised, 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