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."