Diana stood very still in the darkness. How she coveted the intimacy of the little car! She had ridden so often with Anthony, and he never talked so well as when driving; he never revealed so fully the depth and fineness of his great nature. Would he reveal himself to Bettina? Would he? And was she shut out from his life forever? She went up-stairs slowly. "You wait for them, Sophie," she said. "I'm tired--it's been a hard day----" "Poor dear." Sophie stood looking up at her from the foot of the stairs. "I'll come up and rub your head presently." "It isn't my head," Diana answered over her shoulder. "Poor dear," said Sophie again, softly, and saw with anxious eyes the droop of the ascending figure in the white gown. An hour later Bettina came. "We rode across the causeway, and down the shore drive. It was beautiful and Anthony is going to take me again. It's been such a lovely, lovely day, Mrs. Martens." All the doubts of the early evening had been swept away, and Bettina was triumphantly happy. When they reached the second floor, she stopped outside of Diana's room. "Good-night, dear lady," she called softly, with her lips against the door. "Good-night," came faintly, then after a moment, "dear child." But Diana did not open the door. CHAPTER VI "FOR EVERY MAN THERE IS JUST ONE WOMAN" When Sophie, having donned a smoke-gray kimono and brushed her shining hair, went down to Diana, she expected to find her pensive. She found her, instead, with various little white jars and silver bottles set before her on her dressing table. "When a woman takes to cold cream, Sophie," she remarked, as her friend came in, "it's a deadly sign. It shows that she has found her first wrinkle." "Diana, how can you! You know that you are beautiful without such aids." "When I was in Paris," Diana continued, "I was persuaded into buying these. I was told that they held the secret of perpetual youth." "Perpetual youth is from the heart, Diana." "Then my heart is as old as the ages." Diana was gazing into the mirror, which reflected her tired face. "I can't think of anything but that child, dancing in the candle-light. Oh, youth, youth, Sophie; is there anything like it in the whole wide world!" "Diana," Sophie's voice was sharpened by her solicitude, "come away from that mirror." Diana obediently turned her back on her dressing table, and presently she said, "I wonder if it was wise to have her here?" "Bettina?" "Yes." Sophie was thoughtful. "I'm not sure. Yet it seemed to me to-night that perhaps--you had been wise----" "What made you think that?" "Anthony's face when you played, Diana." "Oh!" Diana crossed the room and dropped down on the rug at her friend's feet. "Tell me how he looked," she said, softly, with her arm outflung across the other's knees. "It was just in a flash that I saw his face--under the search-light from the ferry. It was the face of a man who had lost the one woman in the world for him, Diana."