"Why must you give me up at all?" she challenged.
"Why?" he echoed. "There is no 'why.' I shall never give you up."
At Diana's door she said "Good-bye." "It has been the loveliest evening of my life," she told him. "I shall never forget."
Anthony came in, ostensibly to telephone, but really to have a moment alone with Bettina. Sophie, with sympathetic insight, made the excuse of a letter, which Anthony could mail, and withdrew to write it.
In the dimly-lighted music room, Anthony said, "You must forgive me, dear child, for seeming to neglect you, but I've been such a busy man."
"I know." She looked up at him. "But it seems nice to have you now."
"And it seems nice to have you."
He smiled at her, but he did not touch her. Somehow since that night in the empty house with Diana he had felt that there were things which must come slowly. If he was to play the lover to little Betty, it must be when he could shut out from his heart the image of that pale tall woman in the lilac-scented room.
But Bettina missed nothing from his manner. She felt for him a grateful affection, an unbounded respect, but her wish for impulsive demonstration was gone. She was content to be near him, to know that he cared for her—beyond that she had no conscious desires.
Still smiling at her, he took from his pocket a little box. "I haven't been too busy to remember that I wanted to give you this," he said, and handed it to her.