“Why?” I asked mechanically, although I knew the answer.

“The awful penalty of trying to keep one’s figure,” she returned lightly.  “But I certainly am going to break training this noon.  I am simply starved.”

Her tone and words were reassuring, although I still felt there was something behind her light manner which intimately concerned me.  But I had learned to count on her downright honesty, and her words, “Nothing that cannot be helped, my dear,” steadied me, gave me hope that no matter what trouble she had to tell me, she had also a panacea for it.

We discussed our luncheon leisurely.  Under the influence of the bracing air, the beautiful view, the delicious viands, I gradually forgot my worries, or at least pushed them back into a corner of my brain.

As we lingered over the ices, Lillian leaned over the table to me.

“Will you do me a favor?” she asked abruptly.

“Try me,” I smiled back at her.

“Ask me to your home for a week’s stay.  I have an idea you need my fine Italian hand at work about now.”

I looked at her wonderingly, then I began to tremble.

“Don’t look like that,” she commanded sharply.  “Nothing dreadful is the matter, but that Dicky bird of yours needs his wings clipped a bit, and I think I am the person to apply the shears.”

So there was something wrong with Dicky after all!

“Of course, it’s that Draper cat,” said Lillian Underwood, and the indignation in her voice was a salve to my wounded pride.

“Then you know,” I faltered.

“Of course, I know, you poor child; know, too, how distressed you have been, although Dicky doesn’t dream that I gathered that from his ingenuous plea for the lady.”

My brain whirled.  Dicky making an ingenuous plea to Lillian Underwood for his protege, Grace Draper!  I could not understand it.

“If Dicky has spoken of my feeling toward Miss Draper, even to you,” I began stormily, feeling every instinct outraged.

“Don’t, dear child.”  Mrs. Underwood reached her firm, cool hand across the table, and put it over my hot, trembling fingers.  “You can’t fight this thing by getting angry, or by jumping at conclusions.  Now, listen to me.”

There was a peremptory note in her voice that I was glad to obey.  I resolved not to interrupt her again.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” she went on, “and please don’t be angry when I say you are about as able to cope with the situation as a new born baby would be.  That’s the reason why I want you to let me come down and be a big sister to you.  Will you?”

“Of course.  You know I will,” I returned.  “But won’t Dicky resent—­”

“Dicky won’t dream what I’m doing,” she retorted tartly, “and when he does wake up I’ll take care of him.”

Always the note of domination of Dicky!  Always the calm assumption, which I knew was justified, that no matter what she did he would not, remain angry at her!  It spoke much for the real liking I felt for Lillian Underwood that the old resentment I felt for this condition of things was gone forever.  I knew that she was my friend even more than Dicky’s, and her history had revealed to me to what lengths she would go in loyalty to a friend.