the flue goes Marian's chance of drawing the plans for John Gilman's house,” she said. “I have heard him say a dozen times he would not build a house unless Marian made the plans.”
Eileen deftly placed the strand of hair and set the jewelled pin with precision.
“Just possibly things have changed slightly,” she suggested.
“Yes,” said Linda, “I observe that they have. Marian has sold the home she adored. She is leaving friends she loved and trusted, and who were particularly bound to her by a common grief without realizing exactly how it is happening. She certainly must know that you have taken her lover, and I have not a doubt but that is the reason she has discovered she can no longer work at home, that she must sell her property and spend the money cooped up in a city, to study her profession further.”
“Linda,” said Eileen, her face pale with anger, “you are positively insufferable. Will you leave my room and close the door after you?”
“Well, Katy has just informed me,” said Linda, “that this dinner party doesn't come off without my valued assistance, and before I agree to assist, I'll know ONE thing. Are you proposing to entertain these three men yourself, or have you asked Marian?”
Eileen indicated an open note lying on her dressing table.
“I did not know they were coming until an hour ago,” she said. “I barely had time to fill the vases and dust, and then I ran up to dress so that there would be someone presentable when they arrive.”
“All right then, we'll agree that this is a surprise party, but if John Gilman has told you so much about them, you must have been expecting them, and in a measure prepared for them at any time. Haven't you talked it over with Marian, and told her that you would want her when they came?”
Eileen was extremely busy with another wave of hair. She turned her back and her voice was not quite steady as she answered. “Ever since Marian got this 'going to the city to study' idea in her head I have scarcely seen her. She had an awful job to empty the house, and pack such things as she wants to keep, and she is working overtime on a very special plan that she thinks maybe she'll submit in a prize competition offered by a big firm of San Francisco architects, so I have scarcely seen her for six weeks.”
“And you never once went over to help her with her work, or to encourage her or to comfort her? You can't think Marian can leave this valley and not be almost heartbroken,” said Linda. “You just make me almost wonder at you. When you think of the kind of friends that Marian Thorne's father and mother, and our father and mother were, and how we children were reared together, and the good times we have had in these two houses—and then the awful day when the car went over the cliff, and how Marian clung to us and tried to comfort us, when her own health was broken—and Marian's the same Marian she has always been, only nicer every day—how you can sit there and say you have scarcely seen her in six of the hardest weeks of her life, certainly surprises me. I'll tell you this: I told Katy I would help her, but I won't do it if you don't go over and make Marian come tonight.”
Eileen turned to her sister and looked at her keenly. Linda's brow was sullen, and her jaw set.
“A bed would look mighty good to me and I will go and get into mine this minute if you don't say you will go and ask her, in such a way that she comes,” she threatened.
Eileen hesitated a second and then said: “All right, since you make such a point of it I will ask her.”
“Very well,” said Linda. “Then I'll help Katy the very best I can.”
CHAPTER III. The House of Dreams
In less than an hour, Linda was in the kitchen, dressed in an old green skirt and an orange blouse. Katy pinned one of her aprons on the girl and told her that her first job was to set the table.
“And Miss Eileen has given most particular orders that I use the very best of everything. Lay the table for four, and you are to be extremely careful in serving not to spill the soup.”
Linda stood very quietly for a second, her heavy black brows drawn together in deep thought.
“When did Eileen issue these instructions?” she inquired.
“Not five minutes ago,” said Katy. “She just left me kitchen and I'll say I never saw her lookin' such a perfect picture. That new dress of hers is the most becoming one she has ever had.”
Almost unconsciously, Linda's hand reached to the front of her well-worn blouse, and she glanced downward at her skirt and shoes.
“Um-hm,” she said meditatively, “another new dress for Eileen, which means that I will get nothing until next month's allowance comes in, if I do then. The table set for four, which, interpreted, signifies that she has asked Marian in such a way that Marian won't come. And the caution as to care with the soup means that I am to serve my father's table like a paid waitress. Katy, I have run for over three years on Eileen's schedule, but this past year I am beginning to use my brains and I am reaching the place of self-assertion. That programme won't do, Katy. It's got to be completely revised. You just watch me and see how I follow those instructions.”
Then Linda marched out of the kitchen door and started across the lawn in the direction of a big brown house dimly outlined through widely spreading branches of ancient live oaks, palm, and bamboo thickets. She entered the house without knocking and in the hall uttered a low penetrating whistle. It was instantly answered from upstairs. Linda began climbing, and met Marian at the top.
“Why, Marian,” she cried, “I had no idea you were so far along. The house is actually empty.”
“Practically everything went yesterday,” answered Marian. “Those things of Father's and Mother's and my own that I wish to keep I have put in storage, and the remainder went to James's Auction Rooms. The house is sold, and I am leaving in the morning.”
“Then that explains,” questioned Linda, “why you refused Eileen's invitation to dinner tonight?”
“On the contrary,” answered Marian, “an invitation to dinner tonight would be particularly and peculiarly acceptable to me, since the kitchen is barren as the remainder of the house, and I was intending to slip over when your room was lighted to ask if I might spend the night with you.”
Linda suddenly gathered her friend in her arms and held her tight.
“Well, thank heaven that you felt sufficiently sure of me to come to me when you needed me. Of course you shall spend the night with me; and I must have been mistaken in thinking Eileen had been here. She probably will come any minute. There are guests for the night. John is bringing that writer friend of his. Of course you know about him. It's Peter Morrison.”
Marian nodded her head. “Of course! John has always talked of him. He had some extremely clever articles in The Post lately.”
“Well, he is one,” said Linda, “and an architect who is touring with him is two; they are looking for a location to build a house for the writer. You can see that it would be a particularly attractive feather in our cap if he would endorse our valley sufficiently to home in it. So Eileen has invited them to sample our
