"Why not? My friendship for you need deprive her of nothing."
"I must think it over."
"Don't think. Don't analyze at all. Just stay." A grave smile lighted his face. "I'm not making this as a selfish proposition, Diana. I shan't expect to absorb you, to take you away from other friendships. But I want you to be near me at such times as this; when my world was without a ray of light, you illumined it with your friendly taper."
Diana climbed the steps in an uplifted mood. This, then, was the solution of the difficulty. She had been making high tragedy of the situation when it might be solved sensibly. She remembered a quotation which she had copied in her school note-book: "My friend is one with whom I can associate my choicest thought." Her friendship with Anthony could go on as before. She could be an inspirational force in his life. Had she the right to refuse?
She found Bettina and Sophie sitting up for her.
"Oh, you're back so soon," Bettina said. "Is she better? Is that little girl better?"
Diana returned to realities with a shock. How selfish she had been! She had almost forgotten that poor little soul at the hospital.
"No, she isn't better." She shrank from voicing the truth. "They couldn't save her, and before I reached there she was—gone."
"Dead!" Bettina shuddered. "Oh, I think such things are dreadful; I don't see how Anthony stands it."
"It has made him very miserable," Diana told her; "he hates to lose a case."