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 i