to Bettina's imagination. "Why, how lovely," she said with her eyes
shining; "he didn't seem like that to me. He seemed so--shallow."

"But he isn't," Sophie defended; "if it had not been for him and for
Diana I should have lost heart many times--the world knows Justin as a
rich young man, ready for a good time, but I know him as the Knight of
the Tender Heart."

"How old is he?"

"Twenty-six. I didn't realize until I reached here that he was flying
again. He does such dangerous things. I saw the aeroplane yesterday
morning, and found out afterward that he was up--and since then my heart
seems to stop every time I think of him in the air----"

With all the optimism of youth, Bettina tried to reassure her.

"He said last night that he was very careful. He wants to take me up."

"Oh, don't ever do anything so dreadful."

"I couldn't if I wanted to. Anthony made me promise last night that I
wouldn't----"

She said it with a comfortable sense of her lover's care for her; "I'd
rather ride any day with Anthony in his little car."

"My dear," Sophie said with some hesitation, "I'm going to suggest that
except to Diana and myself, you try not to seem too much interested
in--your doctor--the world might suspect--and you don't want to announce
your engagement yet, Diana tells me----"

Bettina shrugged her white shoulders. "I don't care if everybody knows,"
she said; "but Diana thought that Anthony's friends might like to get
acquainted with me first. But if you could know what he's been to me,
Mrs. Martens--why, when I waked this morning it seemed like a dream to
think that I wasn't in the top floor of the old Lane house, with Miss
Matthews making her breakfast coffee over an alcohol stove, and a little
impatient because I hadn't the toast ready, and with the prospect ahead
of me of another lonely day, when I should try to read and try not to
think, and miss mother until I nearly died.

"Do you wonder that I love him?" She came up to Mrs. Martens and put her
hands on her shoulders. "He's so wonderful and good--and he loves
me----"

Sophie could not meet the frank young eyes. "It's nice that you feel
that way," she said, "and I hope you don't mind what I said--it was only
that it might save you some future--embarrassment."

"I'll be careful," said Bettina, "only I'm perfectly sure that everybody
will know every time I look at Anthony that he's the one man in the
world for me. You can't imagine how uninteresting ot