"I am sure she will. She has been so brave."
"If I know Justin, he won't let her marry him when he learns the truth."
"Oh, Anthony!"
"I haven't given up hope, however. His wonderful vitality and perfect health may bring about that which now seems impossible."
Bettina, since she could not minister to Justin, spent the days in ministering to others. In the great workshop where men and women of wealth wove rugs and made pottery as if their bread and butter depended upon it, she became a familiar figure. The patients loved to have her there, and she went from one to the other, a charming little helper in her white frock, with her air of girlish grace.
In those days her beauty assumed a new aspect. All the petulance was gone from her expression—the restlessness from her manner.
"How lovely she is!" said nurses and patients and doctors, and they spoke not of her physical beauty, but of her loveliness of mind and of soul.
Whenever she was allowed to see Justin she came to him with hope in her shining glance. And one day Anthony let her take the nurse's place, so that for the first time they were alone.
It was then that Justin told her of the Procession of Pretty Ladies. "Anthony says it was the morphine," he said, "but whatever it was, they kept me company for days."
Betty laughed. "You'll soon have a real procession of pretty ladies. Diana wants to come, and Sophie and Sara and Doris. But Anthony insists that they must wait until you can sit up."