Glory of Youth | Page 9

head, cap-fashion, in wide
pink ribbon, and her crêpe kimonos always reflected the same
enchanting hue.
But this morning it was a white rose which lay back on the pillows.
Diana's loose brown braids hung straight down on each side of her pale
face. There were shadows under her eyes.
"Don't look at me that way, Sophie," she said, sharply, as Mrs. Martens
came up to the bed. "I--I'm not going into a decline--or break my
heart--or----"
She broke off and said in a changed voice, "You're a dear." Then with a
pitiful little laugh, "It wouldn't be so hard--but she's so young, Sophie."
"Eighteen--poor Anthony!"
"Do you think he is really unhappy, Sophie?"
The night before when she had lain in Mrs. Martens' comforting arms,
she had thought only of her own misery. For a time she had been just a
little sobbing child to be consoled. All her poise, all her self-restraint
had gone down under the force of the overwhelming shock.

But now a wild hope sprang up in her breast. Why should two people
suffer for the sake of one? And the other girl was so young--she would
get over it.
Yet, remembering Anthony's face as he had left her, she had little hope.
"I wish you might have been prepared for this," he had said. "I wrote a
letter, but it must have missed you. Perhaps it has been best to talk it
out--that's why I came. May I still come, sometimes, Diana?"
Then her pride had risen to meet the crisis.
"As if anything could spoil our friendship, Anthony," she had told him
bravely. "I want you to come--and some day you must bring--the Girl."
"You will 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