CHAPTER XXVI

THE CALL OF APOLLO

Dinah’s strength came back to her in leaps and bounds, and three weeks after the de Vignes’s departure she was almost herself again.  The season was drawing to a close.  The holidays were over, and English people were turning homeward.  Very reluctantly Isabel had to admit that her charge was well enough for the journey back.  Mrs. Bathurst wrote in an insistent strain, urging that the time had come for her to return, and no further excuse could be invented for keeping her longer.

They decided to return themselves and take Dinah to her home, Isabel having determined to make the acquaintance of the redoubtable Mrs. Bathurst, and persuade her to spare her darling to them again in the summer.  The coming parting was hard to face, so hard that Dinah could not bear to speak of it.  She shed a good many tears in private, as Isabel was well aware; but she never willingly made any reference to the ordeal she so dreaded.

The only time she voluntarily broached the subject was when she entreated to be allowed to go down to the last dance that was to be held in the hotel.  It chanced that this was fixed for the night before their own departure, and Isabel demurred somewhat; for though Dinah had shaken off most of her invalid habits, she was still far from robust.

“You will be so tired in the morning, darling,” she protested gently, while Dinah knelt beside her, earnestly pleading.  “You will get that tiresome side-ache, and you won’t be fit to travel.”

“I shall—­I shall,” Dinah assured her.  “Oh, please, dear, just this once—­just this once—­let me have this one more fling!  I shall never have another chance.  I’m sure I never shall.”

Isabel’s hand stroked the soft dark hair caressingly.  She saw that Dinah was very near to tears.  “I don’t believe I ought to say Yes, dear child,” she said.  “You know I hate to deny you anything.  But if it were to do you harm, I should never forgive myself.”

“It couldn’t!  It shan’t!” declared Dinah, almost incoherent in her vehemence.  “It isn’t as if I wanted to dance every dance.  I’d come and sit out with you in between.  And if I got tired, you could take me away.  I would go directly if you said so.  Really I would.”

She was hard to resist, kneeling there with her arms about Isabel and her bright eyes lifted.  Isabel took the sweet face between her hands and kissed it.

“Let me ask Scott what he thinks!” she said.  “I want to give in to you, Dinah darling, but it’s against my judgment.  If it is against his judgment too, will you be content to give it up?”

“Oh, of course,” said Dinah instantly.  She was confident that Scott—­that kind and gentle friend of hers—­would deny her nothing.  It seemed almost superfluous to ask him.

The words had scarcely left her lips when his quiet knock came at the sitting-room door, and he entered.