HER FATHER'S RING
It was late the next night before Bettina found time to write a letter to Anthony. The town clock had struck ten, and Miss Matthews was asleep in the inner room. As Bettina settled herself at her desk there came through the open window the fragrance of the sea—the night was very still; she could hear across the harbor the beat of the music in the yacht club ballroom, and there was the tinkle of a mandolin on some anchored boat.
She found it difficult to put on paper the things which she decided must be said. Striving to explain she tore up sheet after sheet, then, growing restless at her repeated failure, she rose from her desk and crossed the room to the cabinet in the corner. In one of the drawers was a packet of letters from her mother. They were exquisite in phrasing and in sentiment. She wondered if she might not borrow from them something of their grace.
As she opened the drawer, her eyes fell on the little carved box. Mechanically she reached for it, and touched the spring. Then she stood staring down at her father's ring!
The words which she had once said to Diana echoed insistently in her ears: "People who can love many times, who can go from one person to another, aren't worth thinking about."
Why—she was like her father! He had loved once, and then he had loved again—and he had broken her mother's heart!
Shuddering, she flung the ring from her, and it rolled under the cabinet. She knelt to grope for it, and, having found it, she shut the box. But, like Pandora, she had let out a whole army of evil fancies, and they continued to oppress her.
When she went back to her desk she could not write, and at last she put away her papers and, wrapping herself in her long white coat, climbed to the cupola.
She had slept there many times with her mother. With only the stars above them, and on each side a view of the wide stretches of the sea, they had talked together, and Bettina had learned the beauty of the older woman's nature; having suffered much, she had forgiven everything.
"Your father," she would say, "was like a child seeking the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He was always looking for romance, forgetting that the most wonderful romance is that of the hearthstone and of the quiet heart. If he had ever really loved he would have known the joy of self-sacrifice, of self-effacement—but he did not love——"