Glory of Youth | Page 8

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 the
door on the porch. Miss Diana used to like to lie and look at the
moonlight."
The whole world seemed obsessed by the moonlight. Its white radiance,
when Mrs. Martens at last turned off the glaring bulbs, seemed to cast a
spell over sea and land. She stepped out on the porch, and was awed by
the beauty of the wide sweep of shining sky and sea. Then, far below
on the hidden road, she heard the beat of a motor.
The sound ceased and a man's quick step came up the path. There was
the whirr of an electric bell, and she knew that Anthony had come.
Well, Diana had her Anthony--and she had--Peter! She laughed a little
to stifle a sigh. Diana had the substance--she her shadowy memories.

A faint breeze had sprung up. The yachts tugged at their moorings as
the tide turned. Far to the southeast Minot's light blinked its
one-four-three--"I-warn-you"--message to the ships. Diana had once
said of it, "The sweethearts off the coast translate it
differently--'I-love-you.' That's what Anthony told me."
How she had always quoted him! Even when for a brief time she had
drifted toward that other, she had clung to her belief in Anthony's faith
and goodness--and when she had shaken herself free she had flown
back to him.
And now--in the dim room below Diana was coming at last into her
own!
The little lady crept into bed, shivering--perhaps with the chill of the
spring night, perhaps with the thought of the happiness from which she
was left out.
Presently she heard again the beat of the motor. Beginning in front of
the house, it grew fainter in the distance; then silence, and at last a soft
step on the stairs.
"Sophie," there was that in Diana's voice which made her sit up and
listen, "Sophie, are you asleep?"
Mrs. Martens lighted the bedside candle with shaking hands. Diana
came forward into the circle of light. Diana--with all of youth gone
from her. Diana stripped of joy. Diana with the shimmering blue gown
seeming to mock the tragedy in her face.
She came up to the bed and stood looking down at her friend.
"Listen, Sophie," she said, brokenly, "see what I've done. Anthony is
engaged, Sophie. Engaged to another girl!"
* * * * *
Peter, in his basket, slept soundly all night. But Sophie slept not at all.

And early in the morning she went down to her friend.
Diana had taken the room which had been her mother's. She had kept
the carved canopy bed and other massive pieces, but she had changed
the hangings and the wall covering from mauve to rose-color.
"You see, Sophie," she had explained one day in Berlin, "there comes a
time in the life of every woman when she needs rose-color to
counteract the gray of her existence. If you put blue with gray you get
gray. But if you put pink with gray you get rose-color. Perhaps you
didn't know that before, Sophie, but now you do. And you'll know also
that when I dare wear a blue gown I am feeling positively infantile."
Diana, in négligé, had always made Mrs. Martens think of a rose in
bloom. She had a fashion of swathing her