Chapter 4. White Lilacs

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_ 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 her breath quickly, "I'm not like that--I'm little and childish, and I'm not wise."

He saw what he had done and tried to make amends.

"You are--you, Bettina."

"Well," Bettina crossed the hearth-rug, and sat down on a stool at his feet, "she's awfully old, isn't she?"

"My dear, she's years younger than I."

"Oh, you," she laughed and laid her cheek against his hand. "Your heart is just my age, isn't it?"

He moved restlessly, then stood up, with Diana's note still in his hand.

"You'd better write and tell her you'll come," he said. "I'll take you over to-morrow in my car."

She surveyed him wistfully. "Oh, must you really go?"

"Yes. There's the old man with the pneumonia, and the girl with appendicitis, and the new baby at the hospital--I can't neglect them, Bettina."

"When we are married," she asked, tremulously, "will all these sick people keep you from me----"

"A doctor belongs to his patients, my dear----"

"I suppose he does," pensively, "but I shall be terribly jealous of your old men with the pneumonia, and your girls with appendicitis. I shall want you."

If she had hoped to please him by her frank avowal she failed, for he stood looking at her with an expression which made her say hastily, "Don't you want me to want you?"

"I was wondering if I could make you happy."

She gave a little musical note of protest. "I am the happiest girl in the world, except--oh, if mother could only know."

With a quick change of mood, she was sobbing in his arms. The masses of her hair lay soft against his lips, one slim white hand crept to touch his cheek. He imprisoned the small hand in his. "We must have a ring for this soon," and she shifted her head so that she could look up at him from under wet lashes. "Oh," she said, "shall I?"

"Of course. What shall it be?"

"Anything but pearls; they mean tears, you know."

With a quick throb of the heart, he remembered that Diana always wore pearls. Was there something after all in the old superstition, and were the rest of Diana's days to be dreary because she had chosen the wrong jewels?

_Diana, Diana, Diana_, would his mind never leave her?

Then as if his thought had brought her, he heard her voice upon the stairs.

"May I come up? I rang, but no one answered."

"The bell is broken." He hurried out into the hall, and watched her ascend, with her arms full of white lilacs, her gray eyes shaded by a white veil thrown back from a broad hat, and around her throat the inevitable string of pearls.

"I've come to bring some of my flowers to your little Betty child, and to get her answer to my note."

She was smiling now, smiling at him, and at Bettina, who had come forward timidly.

Diana laid the lilacs on the table, and drew the girl into her arms. "When shall it be, my dear? It seems such a perfect plan to me. The big house isn't finished. You can't go into it until fall, and I can help you get things ready. What do you think, Anthony?"

"I don't know. I'll leave it to your wisdom."

"Then I am sure it will be best," she responded cheerfully, "and now, why not to-morrow?"

"I haven't anything to wear," Bettina stated, anxiously.

"There's a sewing woman at the house, and Sophie and I have brought lots of things from Paris."

"Really? And will you tell me all about your trip?"

"Sophie will tell you. She's the talker. I like to listen--Anthony knows that."

If she had meant to stab him by reviving old memories, she succeeded. How he had missed the responsiveness which had spurred him on to talk his best only his hurt heart knew. It had been her belief in him, which had supplemented his ability, and had brought him success, and he knew it and she knew it, and now Bettina was to try to play that inspiring part.

Nothing of his thought showed, however, in his impassive countenance. He stood up and held out his hand.

"My old man with the pneumonia is waiting," he said, "and you'll want to visit a bit with Bettina."

"But there's one thing," he continued hurriedly "that I'd like to speak of before I leave--to have settled. Do you think it will be wise to make a public announcement of our engagement?"

"Why not?" sharply.

Bettina glanced from one to the other, conscious of some undercurrent of feeling which she did not share.

"It's just this way," said Anthony, slowly; "if Bettina could meet your friends and mine, under your auspices, chaperoned by you, they would discover her charms and loveliness," he smiled at the girl, "and they'd then welcome her with open arms. Now she knows none of them; it would be only on your account that she would be received, not upon her own, and I think she'd like the other better Diana. What do you think, Bettina?" he asked. "It is for you to say."

Bettina, who was making a tiny white nosegay of lilacs to pin on Anthony's coat, turned to them a sparkling countenance.

"Me--does it matter? Does anything matter except that I am going to marry you, Anthony?"

She held out her hands to him, laughing over her shoulder at Diana. With her flower face, her hair of gold, her figure slim and swaying like a lily on its stem, she was radiantly, almost impertinently young, and, with a sudden sense of age and weariness, Diana buried her face in the lilacs to hide a whiteness which matched their own.

But she had not been quick enough to escape the keen eyes of Anthony.

He dropped Bettina's hands. "I'll stop to-morrow morning, child, on my way to the sanatorium, and take you over."

"And dine with us later," said Diana. "I'm going to have a lot of people. It will be a sort of impromptu housewarming. I've telephoned about a dozen old friends."

"But I haven't anything to wear." Bettina was again in a panic.

"You'll have about twelve hours to get ready," Diana comforted; "we can do a lot in that time."

But her mind was not on clothes, for she followed the doctor out into the hall to say, "She's just sweet, Anthony----"

"Don't," suddenly all the calm of his fine face was broken up, "don't, Diana----"

Then Bettina came out with the little nosegay of white lilacs.

"You were going away without it," she said reproachfully to the doctor, who was half-way down the stairway.

"Throw it to me and I'll catch it," he called.

But she ran after him and pinned it on and dropped a hasty kiss in the midst of its fragrance, and ran up again, blushing.

And Diana watched the little scene from the top of the stairs and wondered if she had overestimated her own power to endure.

The two women, standing at the window high up in the hallway, saw the doctor depart, then Diana said, suddenly, "Betty, dear, must you wear black?"

The girl's lip trembled.

"But--mother----"

"I know. But, dearie, it wouldn't make her any happier to see you so somber. And there's white for you, and all the pale, pretty tints, and you wouldn't be too gay, nor sadden others."

"But your friend, Mrs. Martens," said Bettina, eagerly; "Anthony pointed her out to me this afternoon--she passed here on her way to the post-office, and she was in deep mourning----"

"Sophie's life is all behind her; yours is ahead of you."

"Wouldn't it seem like--forgetting?"

"You can never forget. But when you come to me there will be young people, and I want you to share their life. Shall we call it settled, and plan a white dress for to-morrow night?"

Diana had a fashion of calling things settled, and of bringing others to her point of view. Bettina had no sense of injury, but only boundless confidence in the decisions of the wonderful woman creature who was to fill her life with gladness.

"There will be twelve of us to-morrow night," she sketched rapidly. "Anthony and you and Sophie and I will make four, then there will be two comfortable married couples, and Justin Ford, who is flying his hydro-aeroplane over the harbor, and Bobbie Tucker, who has his yacht in commission, and Sara Duffield, whom you won't care for, because she is a bit of a snob, and Doris Sears, who is sweet and girlish and about your age.

"Sophie and I have picked out the dress you are to wear," she continued. "I think you are just about Sophie's size, and there's an embroidered white, very sheer and fine, with a round low neck and short sleeves, and a girdle of amethyst, and silk stockings and satin slippers of the same color. I'm not sure whether the slippers will fit, but I fancy that a bit of cotton tucked into the toes would make them all right.

"And I want you to wear your hair like I saw the girls in Paris--curled over your ears with a soft fringe--you'll look adorably young, Betty, and so dear and sweet."

The girl's cheeks were brilliant with excitement. "Why, it doesn't seem true. Two days ago I was like Cinderella sitting in the ashes, and now I'm a fairy princess, and you are the fairy godmother."

"Am I, my dear?" Diana spoke absently; her eyes were on a wonderful piece of lace, which, framed quaintly against a background of velvet, hung above a cabinet in the corner.

"Where did you get that collar, Bettina?" she asked.

"It was one of the things that belonged to father's family," the girl explained. "You know he was an Italian, a Venetian--and mother would never let me wear the collar or the old jewels. There's a queer ring. I'm going to give it to Anthony for a wedding ring."

She spoke the last words with a charming hesitation, then went to the little cabinet in the corner and unlocked a drawer. Within was a carved box which when opened showed a massive golden circlet.

"Dad wore it," said Bettina, "on his little finger, but his hands were fat. Anthony's fingers are slim, and he can fit it on the third finger. If he can't get it on the third finger, he shan't wear it."

Diana stared at her in surprise. "Why not?"

"Because it would remind me of Dad," said Bettina, "and I hated Dad."

Here was a new phase of a nature which Diana had judged gentle and yielding.

"But, my dear," she protested, "surely he was your father."

"He broke mother's heart," said Bettina, obstinately; "he loved so many times, and there's only one love that is worth while, and people who can go from one person to another aren't worth thinking about."

It was the judgment of a child ignorant of life, but so aptly did her condemnation fit in with Sophie's words of the night before, that Diana drew a sharp breath. "Perhaps he was only mistaken," she said; "perhaps he didn't understand until it was too late what he had lost."

"He should have understood. I don't want to be harsh--he was my father, and I wouldn't talk this way to every one. But suppose Anthony treated me the way my father treated mother. Suppose he told me he loved me, and then--some day, I found that he cared--for some one else. What would you think of him then--what would you think of Anthony?"

As she brought her argument to a triumphant close, Diana put up her white-gloved hands as if to ward off a blow, then she said, a little breathlessly, "Don't let Anthony wear the ring--not yet----"

Bettina, unconscious of the emotion she had roused, put the ring back in the box.

"I don't believe I shall," she said, thoughtfully; "there's an old superstition that a ring worn by an inconstant person carries inconstancy with it--and while I don't believe it--it would make me uncomfortable."

"It would--indeed," was Diana's fervent confirmation.

She was still shivering with the shock of the girlish outburst.

"She loves him," she said to herself in dismay. "She really loves him."

She rose and laid her hand on Bettina's shoulder. "Forget to be unhappy while you are with me, Betty, dear. You are going to be very gay--and, oh, so very, very young----" She bent and kissed her. "And now, I want you to do two things for me;--first, you must call me Diana--and second, you must believe that I am really your friend. If I ever do anything to make you doubt, remember this, that in my heart is just one wish, to help my old friend Anthony to happiness----"

The girl laughed softly, her head up, her eyes shining. "You can't make him much happier than he is," she said; "it may sound awfully conceited, but I think he's happy--because he's going to marry me--Diana." _

Read next: Chapter 5. In Which Bettina Dances

Read previous: Chapter 3. In Which Diana Reaps

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