"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.