"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."
"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 its bosom.
Suddenly there broke upon the stillness the sound of a great buzzing, as of some mammoth bee.
"What is it?" asked Diana, standing in the doorway.
"Look, oh, look," cried Sophie, and then they saw above them, darting like a dragon-fly through the golden haze, a magic ship of the air.
"I wonder who's flying," said Diana, as they watched it go up and up until it was a mere speck against the blue. "They are daring folk, these flying men--yet there are men more daring. If you could see Anthony's hands! Those strong, competent hands that work with instruments and surgeon's needles, and a slip may mean some one's life--it's such men who are the bravest, Sophie, not the men who fly."
The little woman stepped back within the circle of her friend's arm. Diana towered a head above her, yet spiritually she leaned on Sophie's fineness and faith.
Their eyes followed that astounding flight, but their thoughts were with a man whose mornings were spent not in the golden radiance of the upper air, but in the bare blackness of an operating room.
Suddenly Diana spoke sharply. "If I have lost him, Sophie, what shall I do?"
"What do all women do," said Sophie, still gazing with rapt face up into the heavens, "what do all women do who lose the men they love? They pray for courage, Diana, and for strength--and then--and then they fight as best they can until the end--Diana."
"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.