“Oh, heavens,” cried Marian, “I'm glad I never showed her my spot!”
“Well, if you are particular about wanting a certain place I sincerely hope you did not,” said Linda.
“I am sure I never did,” answered Marian. “I so love one spot that I have been most secretive about it. I am certain I never went further than to say there was a place on which I would love to build for myself the house of my dreams. I have just about finished getting that home on paper, and I truly have high hopes that I may stand at least a fair chance of winning with it the prize Nicholson and Snow are offering. That is one of the reasons why I am hurrying on my way to San Francisco much sooner than I had expected to go. I haven't a suitable dinner dress because my trunks have gone, but among such old friends it won't matter. I have one fussy blouse in my bag, and I'll be over as soon as I can see to closing up the house and dressing.”
Linda hurried home, and going to the dining room, she laid the table for six in a deft and artistic manner. She filled a basket with beautiful flowers of her own growing for a centerpiece, and carefully followed Eileen's instruction to use the best of everything. When she had finished she went to the kitchen.
“Katy,” she said, “take a look at my handiwork.”
“It's just lovely,” said Katy heartily.
“I quite agree with you,” answered Linda, “and now in pursuance of a recently arrived at decision, I have resigned, vamoosed, quit, dead stopped being waitress for Eileen. I was seventeen my last birthday. Hereafter when there are guests I sit at my father's table, and you will have to do the best you can with serving, Katy.”
“And it's just exactly right ye are,” said Katy. “I'll do my best, and if that's not good enough, Miss Eileen knows what she can do.”
“Now listen to you,” laughed Linda. “Katy, you couldn't be driven to leave me, by anything on this earth that Eileen could do; you know you couldn't.”
Katy chuckled quietly. “Sure, I wouldn't be leaving ye, lambie,” she said. “We'll get everything ready, and I can serve I six as nicely as anyone. But you're not forgetting that Miss Eileen said most explicit to lay the table for FOUR?'
“I am not forgetting,” said Linda. “For Eileen's sake I am I sorry to say that her ship is on the shoals. She is not going to have clear sailing with little sister Linda any longer. This is the year of woman's rights, you know, Katy, and I am beginning to realize that my rights have been badly infringed upon for lo these many years. If Eileen chooses to make a scene before guests, that is strictly up to Eileen. Now what is it you want me to do?”
Katy directed and Linda worked swiftly. Soon they heard a motor stop, and laughing voices told them that the guests had arrived.
“Now I wonder,” said Linda, “whether Marian is here yet.”
At that minute Marian appeared at the kitchen door.
“Linda,” she said breathlessly, “I am feeling queer about this. Eileen hasn't been over.”
“Oh, that's all right,” said Linda casually. “The folks have come, and she was only waiting to make them a bit at home before she ran after you.”
Marian hesitated.
“She was not allowing me much time to dress.”
“That's 'cause she knew you did not need it,” retorted Linda. “The more you fuss up, the less handsome you are, and you never owned anything in your life so becoming as that old red blouse. So farewell, Katy, we're due to burst into high society tonight. We're going to help Eileen vamp a lawyer, and an author, and an architect, one apiece. Which do you prefer, Marian?”
“I'll take the architect,” said Marian. “We should have something in common since I am going to be a great architect myself one of these days.”
“Why, that is too bad,” said Linda. “I'll have to rearrange the table if you insist, because I took him, and left you the author, and it was for love of you I did it. I truly wanted him myself, all the time.”
They stopped in the dining room and Marian praised Linda's work in laying the table; and then, together they entered the living room.
At the moment of their entrance, Eileen was talking animatedly about the beauties of the valley as a location for a happy home. When she saw the two girls she paused, the color swiftly faded from her face, and Linda, who was watching to see what would happen, noticed the effort she made at self-control, but she was very sure that their guests did not.
It never occurred to Linda that anyone would consider good looks in connection with her overgrown, rawboned frame and lean face, but she was accustomed to seeing people admire Marian, for Marian was a perfectly modeled woman with peach bloom cheeks, deep, dark eyes, her face framed in a waving mass of hair whose whiteness dated from the day that the brakes of her car failed and she plunged down the mountain with her father beside her, and her mother and Doctor and Mrs. Strong in the back seat. Ten days afterward Marian's head of beautiful dark hair was muslin white. Now it framed a face of youth and beauty with peculiar pathos. “Striking” was perhaps the one adjective which would best describe her.
John Gilman came hastily to greet them. Linda, after a swift glance at Eileen, turned astonished eyes on their guests. For one second she looked at the elder of them, then at the younger. There was no recognition in her eyes, and there was a decided negative in a swift movement of her head. Both men understood that she did not wish them to mention that they ever had seen her previously. For an instant there was a strained situation. Eileen was white with anger. John Gilman was looking straight at Marian, and in his soul he must have wondered if he had been wise in neglecting her for Eileen. Peter Morrison and his architect, Henry Anderson, had two things to think about. One was the stunning beauty of Marian Thorne as she paused in the doorway, the light misting her white hair and deepening the tints of her red waist The other was why the young girl facing them had forbidden them to reveal that two hours before they had seen her in the canyon. Katy, the efficient life-saver of the Strong family, announced dinner, and Linda drew back the curtains and led the way to the dining room, saying when they had arrived: “I didn't have time in my hour's notice to make elaborate place cards as I should have liked to do, so these little pen sketches will have to serve.”
To cover his embarrassment and to satisfy his legal mind, John Gilman turned to Linda, asking: “Why 'an hour'? I told Eileen a week ago I was expecting the boys today.”
“But that does not prove that Eileen mentioned it to me,” answered Linda quietly; “so you must find your places from the cards I could prepare in a hurry.”
This same preparation of cards at the round table placed Eileen between the architect and the author, Marian between the author and John Gilman, and Linda between Gilman and the architect, which added one more tiny gale to the storm of fury that was raging in the breast of white-faced Eileen. The situation was so strained that without fully understanding it, Marian, who was several years older than either of the Strong sisters, knew that although she was tired to the point of exhaustion she should muster what reserve force she could to the end of making the dinner party particularly attractive, because she was deeply interested in drawing to the valley every suitable home seeker it was possible to locate there. It was the unwritten law of the valley that whenever a home seeker passed through, every soul who belonged exerted the strongest influence to prove that the stars hung lower and shone bigger and in bluer heavens than anywhere else on earth; that nowhere could
