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 get up presently, and then—I'll see some way out of it——"

At her tone, her friend who had crossed the room to pull up the shades turned and looked at her. "What way can you see, Diana?"

Diana slipped out of bed and stood up, tall and white, with the long brown braids hanging heavily to her knees.

"There must be some way," she said, "for all of us. I don't believe in sitting down and letting things go wrong, and they may be as wrong for that little girl as for Anthony and me—surely one must use common sense in a case like this——"

Sophie pulled up the curtain, letting in a flood of sunshine.

"One may use common sense," she said, "but one must be very careful——"

Diana twisted her braids into a coronet, and put on a padded Japanese robe, for the air blew cool from the sea. Then she sat down at her desk.

"I am going to ask her to come and visit me, Sophie. I want you to take the letter when you go down to breakfast."

"To visit you—who?"

"Bettina. She can stay until Anthony's big house is ready. I want to know his little girl."

While Diana wrote her note, Sophie stepped out on the porch which matched her own above it. The harbor lay still and beautiful, a sapphire sheet in the morning calm. The anchored boats seemed to sleep like great white birds on its bosom.

Suddenly there broke upon the stillness the sound of a great buzzing, as of some mammoth bee.

"What is it?" asked Diana, standing in the doorway.

"Look, oh, look," cried Sophie, and then they saw above them, darting like a dragon-fly through the golden haze, a magic ship of the air.

"I wonder who's flying," said Diana, as they watched it go up and up until it was a mere speck against the blue. "They are daring folk, these flying men—yet there are men more daring. If you could see Anthony's hands! Those strong, competent hands that work with instruments and surgeon's needles, and a slip may mean some one's life—it's such men who are the bravest, Sophie, not the men who fly."

The little woman stepped back within the circle of her friend's arm. Diana towered a head above her, yet spiritually she leaned on Sophie's fineness and faith.

Their eyes followed that astounding flight, but their thoughts were with a man whose mornings were spent not in the golden radiance of the upper air, but in the bare blackness of an operating room.

Suddenly Diana spoke sharply. "If I have lost him, Sophie, what shall I do?"

"What do all women do," said Sophie, still gazing with rapt face up into the heavens, "what do all women do who lose the men they love? They pray for courage, Diana, and for strength—and then—and then they fight as best they can until the end—Diana."

CHAPTER IV

WHITE LILACS

"Isn't it dear of her to ask me?"

"Very." Anthony took the note which Bettina handed him. In his desk were many letters written on the gray paper with the silver monogram. Subconsciously he realized that he ought to destroy them, but there was time enough for that.

"She says she wants me to stay with her all summer; do you think I ought?"

"She would not have asked you if she had not meant it."

Bettina, with her small feet on the fender, considered the situation.

"You'll have to come and see me there, and I'll miss our twilight talks by the fire, with Miss Matthews away, and tea, and no one to interrupt——"

"The days are growing longer. Soon there will be no twilights and no fire——"

"And you want me to go?"

His nature was perfectly honest, and he meant that there should be no barriers between himself and this child-woman. So he told her the truth. "I don't know. But you'll be very gay. There'll be the dances at the yacht clubs, and you'll be entertained on the boats, and you'll meet lots of people. Diana knows every one, and her money and position and her beauty make her much in demand."

"Isn't it funny she has never married?"

"Funny"—sharply; "no, it's not funny. It's tragic."

"Why?"

"Because such women as Diana should marry. She has all the qualities for a wife and mother—she is wise and true and good, and there aren't many women like that in the world——"

"Oh," the girl drew