Peter, in his basket, slept soundly all night. But Sophie slept not at all. And early in the morning she went down to her friend.
Diana had taken the room which had been her mother's. She had kept the carved canopy bed and other massive pieces, but she had changed the hangings and the wall covering from mauve to rose-color.
"You see, Sophie," she had explained one day in Berlin, "there comes a time in the life of every woman when she needs rose-color to counteract the gray of her existence. If you put blue with gray you get gray. But if you put pink with gray you get rose-color. Perhaps you didn't know that before, Sophie, but now you do. And you'll know also that when I dare wear a blue gown I am feeling positively infantile."
Diana, in négligé, had always made Mrs. Martens think of a rose in bloom. She had a fashion of swathing her head, cap-fashion, in wide pink ribbon, and her crêpe kimonos always reflected the same enchanting hue.
But this morning it was a white rose which lay back on the pillows. Diana's loose brown braids hung straight down on each side of her pale face. There were shadows under her eyes.
"Don't look at me that way, Sophie," she said, sharply, as Mrs. Martens came up to the bed. "I—I'm not going into a decline—or break my heart—or——"
She broke off and said in a changed voice, "You're a dear." Then with a pitiful little laugh, "It wouldn't be so hard—but she's so young, Sophie."
"Eighteen—poor Anthony!"
"Do you think he is really unhappy, Sophie?"