Katy Unburdens Her Mind
Possibly because she wished to eliminate herself from the offices of
Nicholson and Snow for a few days, possibly because her finely attuned
nature felt the call, Marian Thorne boarded a train that carried her
to Los Angeles. She stepped from it at ten o’clock in the morning, and
by the street-car route made her way to Lilac Valley. When she arrived
she realized that she could not see Linda before, possibly, three in
the afternoon. She entered a restaurant, had a small lunch box packed,
and leaving her dressing case, she set off down the valley toward
the mountains. She had need of their strength, their quiet and their
healing. To the one particular spot where she had found comfort in
Lilac Valley her feet led her. By paths of her own, much overgrown for
want of recent usage, she passed through the cultivated fields, left
the roadway, and began to climb. When she reached the stream flowing
down the rugged hillside, she stopped to rest for a while, and her mind
was in a tumult. In one minute she was seeing the bitterly disappointed
face of a lonely, sensitive man whose first wound had been re-opened by
the making of another possibly quite as deep; and at the next her heart
was throbbing because Linda had succeeded in transferring the living
Peter to paper.
The time had come when Marian felt that she would know the personality
embodied in the letters she had been receiving; and in the past few
days her mind had been fixing tenaciously upon Peter Morrison. And the
feeling concerning which she had written Linda had taken possession
of her. Wealth did not matter; position did not matter. Losing the
love of a good man did not matter. But the mind and the heart and the
personality behind the letters she had been receiving did matter. She
thought long and seriously. When at last she arose she had arrived at
the conclusion that she had done the right thing, no matter whether
the wonderful letters she had received went on and offered her love or
not, no matter about anything. She must merely live and do the best she
could, until the writer of those letters chose to disclose himself and
say what purpose he had in mind when he wrote them.
So Marian followed her own path beside the creek until she neared its
head, which was a big, gushing icy spring at the foot of the mountain
keeping watch over the small plateau that in her heart she had thought
of as hers for years. As she neared the location strange sounds began
to reach her, voices of men, clanging of hammers, the rip of saws.
A look of deep consternation overspread her face. She listened an
instant and then began to run. When she broke through the rank foliage
flourishing from the waters of the spring and looked out on the plateau
what she saw was Peter Morrison’s house in the process of being floored
and shingled. For a minute Marian was physically ill. Her heart hurt
until her hand crept to her side in an effort to soothe it. Before she
asked the question of a man coming to the spring with a pail in his
hand, she knew the answer. It was Peter Morrison’s house. Marian sprang
across the brook, climbed to the temporary roadway, and walked down
in front of the building. She stood looking at it intently. It was in
a rough stage, but much disguise is needed to prevent a mother from
knowing her own child. Marian’s dark eyes began to widen and to blaze.
She walked up to the front of the house and found that rough flooring
had been laid so that she could go over the first floor. When she had
done this she left the back door a deeply indignant woman.
“There is some connection,” she told herself tersely, “between my lost
sketch and this house, which is merely a left-to-right rehearsal of
my plans; and it’s the same plan with which Henry Anderson won the
Nicholson and Snow prize money and the still more valuable honour of
being the prize winner. What I want to know is how such a wrong may be
righted, and what Peter Morrison has to do with it.”
Stepping from the back door, Marian followed the well-worn pathway
that led to the garage, looking right and left for Peter, and she was
wondering what she would say to him if she met him. She was thinking
that perhaps she had better return to San Francisco and talk the matter
over with Mr. Snow before she said anything to anyone else; by this
time she had reached the garage and stood in its wide-open door. She
looked in at the cot, left just as someone had arisen from it, at the
row of clothing hanging on a rough wooden rack at the back, at the
piled boxes, at the big table, knocked together from rough lumber,
in the center, scattered and piled with books and magazines; and
then her eyes fixed intently on a packet lying on the table beside a
typewriter and a stack of paper and envelopes. She walked over and
picked up the packet. As she had known the instant she saw them, they
were her letters. She stood an instant holding them in her hand, a
dazed expression on her face. Mechanically she reached out and laid her
hands on the closed typewriter to steady herself. Something about it
appealed to her as familiar. She looked at it closely, then she lifted
the cover and examined the machine. It was the same machine that had
stood for years in Doctor Strong’s library, a machine upon which she
had typed business letters for her own father, and sometimes she had
copied lectures and book manuscript on it for Doctor Strong. Until his
house was completed and his belongings arrived, Peter undoubtedly had
borrowed it. Suddenly a wild desire to escape swept over Marian. Her
first thought was of her feelings. She was angry, and justly so. In her
heart she had begun to feel that the letters she was receiving were
from Peter Morrison. Here was the proof.
Could it be possible that in their one meeting Peter had decided that
she was his dream woman, that in some way he had secured that rough
sketch of her plans, and from them was preparing her dream house for
her? The thought sped through her brain that he was something more than
human to have secured those plans, to have found that secluded and
choice location. For an instant she forgot the loss of the competition
in trying to comprehend the wonder of finding her own particular house
fitting her own particular location as naturally as one of its big
boulders.
She tried to replace the package of letters exactly as she had found
them. On tiptoe she slipped back to the door and looked searchingly
down the road, around, and as far as possible through the house. Then
she gathered her skirts, stepped from the garage, and began the process
of effacing herself on the mountain side. From clump to clump of the
thickest bushes, crouching below the sage and greasewood, pausing to
rest behind lilac and elder, without regard for her traveling suit
or her beautifully shod feet, Marian fled from her location. When
at last she felt that she was completely hidden and at least a mile
from the spot, she dropped panting on a boulder, brushing the débris
from her skirts, lifting trembling hands to straighten her hat,
and ruefully contemplating her shoes. Then she tried to think in a
calm, dispassionate, and reasonable manner, but she found it a most
difficult process. Her mind was not well ordered, neither was it at her
command. It whirled and shot off at unexpected tangents and danced as
irresponsibly as a grasshopper from one place to another. The flying
leaps it took ranged from San Francisco to Lilac Valley, from her
location upon which Peter Morrison was building her house, to Linda.
Even John Gilman obtruded himself once more. At one minute she was
experiencing a raging indignation against Henry Anderson. How had he
secured her plan? At another she was trying to figure dispassionately
what connection Peter Morrison could have had with the building of
his house upon her plan. Every time Peter came into the equation her
heart arose in his defense. In some way his share in the proceeding was
all right. He had cared for her and he had done what he thought would
please her. Therefore she must be pleased, although forced to admit to
herself that she would have been infinitely more pleased to have built
her own house in her own way.
She was hungry to see Linda. She wanted Katherine O’Donovan to feed her
and fuss over her and entertain her with her mellow Irish brogue; but
if she went to them and disclosed her presence in the valley, Peter
would know about it, and if he intended the building he was erecting as
a wonderful surprise for her, then she must not spoil his joy. Plan in
any way she could, Marian could see no course left to her other than to
slip back to the station and return to San Francisco without meeting
any of her friends. She hurriedly ate her lunch, again straightened
her clothing, went to the restaurant for her traveling bag, and took
the car for the station where she waited for a return train to San
Francisco. She bought a paper and tried to concentrate upon it in
an effort to take her mind from her own problems so that, when she
returned to them, she would be better able to think clearly, to reason
justly, to act wisely. She was very glad when her train came and she
was started on her way northward. At the first siding upon which it
stopped to allow the passing of a south-bound limited, she was certain
that as the cars flashed by, in one of them she saw Eugene Snow. She
was so certain that when she reached the city she immediately called
the office and asked for Mr. Snow, only to be told that he had gone
away for a day or two on business. After that Marian’s thought was
confused to the point of exasperation.
It would be difficult to explain precisely the state of mind in which
Linda, upon arriving at her home that afternoon, received from Katy the
information that a man named Snow had been waiting an hour for her in
the living room. Linda’s appearance was that of a person so astonished
that Katy sidled up to her giving strong evidence of being ready to
bristle.
“Ye know, lambie,” she said with elaborate indifference, “ye aren’t
havin’ to see anybody ye don’t want to. If it’s somebody intrudin’
himself on ye, just say the word and I’ll fire him; higher than
Guilderoy’s kite I’ll be firin’ him.”
“No, I must see him, Katy,” said Linda quietly. “And have something
specially nice for dinner. Very likely I’ll take him to see Peter
Morrison’s house and possibly I’ll ask him and Peter to dinner. He is a
San Francisco architect from the firm where Marian takes her lessons,
and it’s business about Peter’s house. I was surprised, that’s all.”
Then Linda turned and laid a hand on each of Katy’s hairy, red arms.
“Katherine O’Donovan, old dear,” she said, “if we do come back for
dinner, concentrate on Mr. Snow and study him. Scrutinize, Katy! It’s
a bully word. Scrutinize closely. To add one more to our long lists of
secrets, here’s another. He’s the man I told you about who has asked
Marian to marry him, and Marian has refused him probably because she
prefers somebody nearer home.”
Then Linda felt the tensing of every muscle in Katy’s body. She saw the
lift of her head, the incredulous, resentful look in her eyes. There
was frank hostility in her tone.
“Well, who is there nearer home that Marian knows?” she demanded
belligerently.
“Well, now, who would there be?” retorted Linda.
“Ye ain’t manin’ John Gilman?” asked Katy.
“No,” said Linda, “I am not meaning John Gilman. You should know Marian
well enough to know that.”
“Well, ye ought to know yourself well enough to know that they ain’t
anybody else around these diggin’s that Marian Thorne’s going to get,”
said Katy.
“I imagine Marian will get pretty much whom she wants,” said Linda
laughingly. “In your heart, Katy, you know that Marian need not have
lost John Gilman if she had not deliberately let him go. If she had
been willing to meet Eileen on her own ground and to play the game with
her, it wouldn’t have happened. Marian has more brains in a minute than
Eileen has in a month.”
When Linda drew back the portière and stepped into the living room
Eugene Snow rose to meet her. What either of them expected it might
be difficult to explain. Knowing so little of each other, it is very
possible that they had no visualizations. What Snow saw was what
everyone saw who looked at Linda—a girl arrestingly unusual. With
Linda lay the advantage by far, since she had Marian’s letters for
a background. What she saw was a tall man, slender, and about him
there was to Linda a strong appeal. As she looked into his eyes, she
could feel the double hurt that Fate had dealt him. She thought she
could fathom the fineness in his nature that had led him to made
home-building his chosen occupation. Instantly she liked him. With only
one look deep into his eyes she was on his side. She stretched out both
her hands and advanced.
“Now isn’t this the finest thing of you?” she said. “I am so glad that
you came. I’ll tell you word for word what happened here.”
“That will be fine,” he said. “Which is your favourite chair?”
“You know,” she said, “that is a joke. I am so unfamiliar with this
room that I haven’t any favourite chair. I’ll have to take the nearest,
like Thoreau selected his piece of chicken.”
Then for a few minutes Linda talked frankly. She answered Eugene Snow’s
every question unhesitatingly and comprehensively. Together they
ascended the stairs, and in the guest room she showed him the table at
which she and Marian had studied the sketches of plans, and exactly
where they had left them lying overnight.
“The one thing I can’t be explicit about,” said Linda, “is how many
sheets were there in the morning. We had stayed awake so late talking,
that we overslept. I packed Marian’s bag while she dressed. I snatched
up what there were without realizing whether there were two sheets
or three, laid them in the flat bottom of the case, and folded her
clothing on top of them.”
“I see,” said Mr. Snow comprehendingly. “Now let’s experiment a little.
Of course the window before that table was raised?”
“Yes, it was,” said Linda, “but every window in the house is screened.”
“And what about the door opening into the hall? Can you tell me whether
it was closed or open?”
“It was open,” said Linda. “We left it slightly ajar to create a draft;
the night was warm.”
“Is there anyone about the house,” inquired Mr. Snow, “who could tell
us certainly whether that window was screened that night?”
“Of course,” said Linda. “Our housekeeper, Katherine O’Donovan, would
know. When we go down we’ll ask her.”
On their return to the living room, for the first time in her life
Linda rang for Katy. She hesitated an instant before she did it. It
would be establishing a relationship that never before had existed
between them. She always had gone to Katy as she would have, gone to
her mother. She would have gone to her now, but she wanted Katy to make
her appearance and give her information without the possibility of
previous discussion. Katy answered the bell almost at once. Linda went
to her side and reached her arm across her shoulders.
“Katy,” she said, “this is Mr. Eugene Snow of San Francisco. He is
interested in finding out exactly what became of that lost plan of
Marian’s that we have looked for so carefully. Put on your thinking
cap, old dear, and try to answer accurately any question that Mr. Snow
may wish to ask you.”
Katy looked expectantly at Eugene Snow.
“In the meantime,” said Linda, “I’ll be excused and go bring round the
Bear-cat.”
“I have only one question to ask you,” said Mr. Snow. “Can you recall
whether, for any reason, there was a screen out of the guest-room
window directly in front of which the reading table was standing the
night Miss Marian occupied the room before leaving for San Francisco?”
“Sure there was,” answered Katy instantly in her richest, mellowest
brogue.
She was taking the inventory she had been told to take. She was
deciding, as instantly as Linda had done, that she liked this man.
Years, appearance, everything about him appealed to Katy as being
exactly right for Marian; and her cunning Irish mind was leaping and
flying and tugging at the leash that thirty years of conventions had
bound upon her.
“Sure,” she repeated, “the wildest santana that ever roared over us
just caught that screen and landed it slam against the side of the
garage, and it set inside for three days till I could get a workman to
go up the outside and put it back. It had been out two days before the
night Marian was here.”
“Did Miss Linda know about it?” asked Snow.
“Not that I know of,” said Katy. “She is a schoolgirl, you know, off
early in the morning, back and up to her room, the busiest youngster
the valley knows; and doin’ a dale of good she is, too. It was Miss
Eileen that heard the screen ripped out and told me it was gone. She’s
the one who looked after the housekapin’ and paid the bills. She knew
all about it. If ’twould be helpin’ Miss Marian any about findin’ them
plans we’ve ransacked the premises for, I couldn’t see any reason
why Miss Eileen wouldn’t tell ye the same as I’m tellin’ ye, and her
housekapin’ accounts and her cheque book would show she paid the
carpenter, if it’s legal business you’re wantin’.”
“Thank you, Katy,” said Mr. Snow. “I hope nothing of that kind will
occur. A great wrong has been perpetrated, but we must find some way
to right it without involving such extremely nice young women in the
annoyance of legal proceedings.”
Katy folded her arms and raised her head. All her share of the blarney
of Ireland began to roll from the mellow tip of her tongue.
“Now, the nice man ye are, to be seein’ the beauty of them girls so
quick,” she said. “The good Lord airly in the mornin’ of creation
thought them out when He was jist fresh from rist, and the material was
none shopworn. They ain’t ladies like ’em anywhere else in the whole
of California, and belave me, a many rale ladies have I seen in my
time. Ye can jist make up your mind that Miss Linda is the broth of the
earth. She is her father’s own child and she is like him as two pase
in the pod. And Marian growed beside her, and much of a hand I’ve had
in her raisin’ meself, and well I’m knowin’ how fine she is and what a
juel she’d be, set on any man’s hearthstone. I’m wonderin’,” said Katy
challengingly, “if you’re the Mr. Snow at whose place she is takin’ her
lessons, and if ye are, I’m wonderin’ if ye ain’t goin’ to use the good
judgment to set her, like the juel she would be, in the stone of your
own hearth.”
Eugene Snow looked at Katy intently. He was not accustomed to
discussing his affairs with household helpers, but he could not look at
Katy without there remaining in his vision the form of Linda standing
beside her, a reassuring arm stretched across her shoulders, the manner
in which she had presented her and then left her that she might be free
to answer as she chose with out her young mistress even knowing exactly
what was asked of her. Such faith and trust and love were unusual.
“I might try to do that very thing,” he said, “but, you know, a
wonderful woman is an animated jewel. You can’t manufacture a setting
and put her in and tighten the clasps without her consent.”
“Then why don’t you get it?” said Katy casually.
Eugene Snow laughed ruefully.
“But suppose,” he said, “that the particular jewel you’re discussing
prefers to select her own setting, and mine does not please her.”
“Well, they’s jist one thing,” said Katy. Her heels left the floor
involuntarily; she arose on her tiptoes; her shoulders came up, and
her head lifted to a height it never had known before. “They’s jist
one thing,” she said. “Aside from Miss Linda, who is my very own child
that I have washed and I have combed and I have done for since she was
a toddlin’ four-year-old, they ain’t no woman in this world I would go
as far for as I would for Miss Marian; but I’m tellin’ ye now, ye Mr.
Eujane Snow, that they’s one thing I don’t lend no countenance to. I
am sorry she has had the cold, cruel luck that she has, but I ain’t
sorry enough that I’m goin’ to stand for her droppin’ herself into the
place where she doesn’t belong. If the good Lord ain’t give her the
sense to see that you’re jist the image of the man that would be jist
exactly right for her, somebody had better be tellin’ her so. Anyway,
if Miss Linda is takin’ ye up to the house that Mr. Pater Morrison is
buildin’ and the Pater man is there, I would advise ye to cast your
most discernin’ eye on that gintleman. Ye watch him jist one minute
when he looks at the young missus and he thinks nobody ain’t observing
him, and ye’ll see what ye’ll see. If ye want Marian, ye jist go on and
take her. I’m not carin’ whether ye use a club or white vi’lets, but
don’t ye be lettin’ Marian Thorne get no idea into her head that she
is goin’ to take Mr. Pater Morrison, because concernin’ Pater I know
what I know, and I ain’t goin’ to stand by and see things goin’ wrong
for want of spakin’ up. Now if you’re a wise man, ye don’t nade nothing
further said on the subject.”
Eugene Snow thought intently for a few moments. His vision centered on
Katherine O’Donovan’s face.
“You’re absolutely sure of this?” he said at last.
“Jist as sure as the sun’s sure, and the mountains, and the seasons
come and go,” said Katy with finality. “Watch him and you’ll see it
stickin’ out all over him. I have picked him for me boss, and it’s jist
adorin’ that man crature I am.”
“What about Miss Linda?” inquired Snow. “Is she adoring him?”
“She ain’t nothing but a ganglin’ school kid, adorin’ the spade with
which she can shoot around that Bear-cat of hers, and race the canyons,
and the raly lovely things she can strike on paper with her pencil and
light up with her joyous colours. Her day and her hour ain’t come, and
the Pater man’s that fine he won’t lay a finger on her to wake her
up when she has a year yet of her schoolin’ before her. But in the
manetime it’s my job to stand guard as I’m standin’ right now. I’m
tellin’ ye frank and fair. Ye go on and take Marian Thorne because ye
ought to have her. If she’s got any idea in her head that she’s goin’
to have Pater Morrison, she’ll have to get it out.”
Eugene Snow held out his hand and started to the front door in answer
to the growl of the Bear-cat. As he came down the steps and advanced
to the car, Linda, with the quick eye that had been one of her special
gifts as a birthright, noted a change in him. He seemed to have been
keyed up and toned up. There was a different expression on his face.
There was buoyancy in his step. There was a visible determination in
his eye. He took the seat beside her and Linda started the car. She
looked at him interrogatively.
“Can you connect a heavy wind with the date of the lost plan?” he
inquired.
“There was a crack-a-jack a few days before,” said Linda. “It blew over
some trees in the lot next to us.”
“Exactly,” said Snow; “and it plucked a screen from your guest-room
window. Katy thinks that the cheque to the carpenter and the cost of
the repairs will be in your sister’s account books.”
“Um hm,” nodded Linda. “Well, that simplifies matters, because Peter
Morrison is going to tell you about a trip Henry Anderson made around
our house the morning Marian left.”
“I think that is about all we need to know,” said Mr. Snow conclusively.
“I think so,” said Linda, “but I want you to see Peter’s house for
yourself, since I understand that according to your contract the rights
to reproduce these particular plans remained with you after you had
paid prize money for them.”
“Most certainly,” said Mr. Snow. “We should have that much to show for
our share of the transaction.”
“It’s a queer thing,” said Linda. “You would have to know me a long
time, and perhaps know under what conditions I have been reared in
order to understand a feeling that I frequently have concerning people.
I tobogganed down a sheer side of Multiflores Canyon one day without
my path having been previously prepared, and I very nearly landed in
the automobile that carried Henry Anderson and Peter Morrison on their
first trip to Lilac Valley. I was much interested in preserving the
integrity of my neck. I fervently hoped not to break more than a dozen
of my legs and arms, and was forced to bring down intact the finest
_Cotyledon pulverulenta_ that Daddy or I had found in fourteen years of
collecting in California. I am telling you all this that you may see
why I might have been excused for not having been minutely observant
of my surroundings when I landed. But what I did observe was a chilly,
caterpillary sensation chasing up my spine the instant I met the eyes
of Henry Anderson. In that instant I said to myself that I would not
trust him, that I did not like him.”
“And what about his companion?” asked Eugene Snow lightly.
“Oh, Peter?” said Linda. There was a caress in her pronunciation of the
name. “Why, Peter is a rock. The instant I deposited my Cotyledon in
a safe place I would have put my hand in Peter Morrison’s and started
around the world if he had asked me to go. There is only one Peter. You
will recognize that the instant you meet him.”
“I am altogether willing to take your word for it,” said Mr. Snow.
“And there is one thing about this disagreeable business,” said Linda.
“It was not Peter’s coat that had the plan in it. He knew nothing about
it. He has had his full service of stiff war work, and he has been
knocking around big cities in newspaper work, and now he has come home
to Lilac Valley to ‘set up his rest,’ as in the hymn book, you know.
He built his garage first and he is living in it because he so loves
this house of his that he has to be present to watch it grow in minute
detail. Once on a time I saw a great wizard walking along the sidewalk,
and he looked exactly like any man. He might have been you so far as
anything different from other men in his appearance w as concerned.”
Linda cut down the Bear-cat to its slowest speed.
“What is on my mind is this,” she said. “I don’t think Peter could
quite afford the amount of ground he has bought, and the house he is
building. I think possibly he is tying himself up in obligations.
It may take him two or three years to come even on it; but it is a
prepossession with him. Now can’t you see that if we go to him and tell
him this sordid, underhand, unmanly tale, how his fine nature is going
to be hurt, how his big heart is going to be wrung, how his home-house
that he is building with such eager watchfulness will be a weighty Old
Man of the Sea clinging to his back? Do you think, Mr. Eugene Snow,
that you’re enough of a wizard to examine this house and to satisfy
yourself as to whether it’s an infringement of your plans or not,
without letting Peter know the things about it that would spoil it for
him?”
Eugene Snow reached across and closed a hand over the one of Linda’s
nearest him on the steering wheel.
“You very decent kid, you,” he said appreciatively. “I certainly
am enough of a wizard to save your Peter man any disillusionment
concerning his dream house.”
“Oh, but he is not my Peter man,” said Linda. “We are only the best
friends in the world. Really and truly, if you can keep a secret, he’s
Marian’s.”
“Is he?” asked Mr. Snow interestedly. And then he added very casually,
in the most off-hand manner—he said it more to an orange orchard
through which they were passing than he said it to Linda—“I have very
grave doubts about that. I think there must be some slight complication
that will have to be cleared up.”
Linda’s heart gave a great jump of consternation.
“Indeed no,” she said emphatically. “I don’t think he has just _told_
Marian yet, but I am very sure that he cares for her more than for any
other woman, and I am equally sure she cares for him; and nothing could
be more suitable.”
“All right then,” agreed Mr. Snow.
Linda put the Bear-cat at the mountain, crept around the road, skirted
the boulders, and stopped halfway to the garage. And there, in a low
tone, she indicated to Mr. Snow where they had lunched, when she found
the plans, how she had brought out the coat, where she had emptied
the mouse nest. Then she stepped from the car and hallooed for Peter.
Peter came hurrying from the garage, and Eugene Snow was swift in his
mental inventory. It coincided exactly with Linda’s. He would have been
willing to join hands with Peter and start around the world, quite
convinced of the fairness of the outcome, with no greater acquaintance
than one intent look at Peter, one grip of his sure hand. After that he
began to act on Katy’s hint, and in a very short time he had convinced
himself that she was right. Maybe Peter tried to absorb himself in the
plans he was going over, in the house he was proud to show the great
architect; but it seemed to the man he was entertaining that his glance
scarcely left Linda, that he was so preoccupied with where she went and
what she did that he was like a juggler keeping two mental balls in the
air at the same time.
It seemed to Peter a natural thing that, the architect being in the
city on business, he should run out to call on Miss Thorne’s dearest
friend. It seemed to him equally natural that Linda should bring him
to see a house in which she was so kindly interesting herself. And
just when Peter was most dexterous in his juggling, just when he was
trying to explain the very wonderful step-saving, time-saving, rational
kitchen arrangements and at the same time watch Linda on her course
down to the spring, the architect halted him with a jerk. Eugene Snow
stood very straight, his hands in his coat pockets, looking, Peter
supposed, with interest at the arrangements of kitchen conveniences.
His next terse sentence fairly staggered Peter. He looked him straight
in the eye and inquired casually: “Chosen your dream woman to fit your
house, Morrison?”
Peter was too surprised to conceal his feelings. His jaws snapped
together; a belligerent look sprang into his eyes.
“I have had a good deal to do with houses,” continued Mr. Snow. “They
are my life work. I find that invariably they are built for a woman.
Almost always they are built from her plans, and for her pleasure. It’s
a new house, a unique house, a wonderful house you’re evolving here. It
must be truly a wonderful woman you’re dreaming about while you build
it.”
That was a nasty little trap. With his years and worldly experience
Peter should not have fallen into it; but all men are children when
they are sick, heart sick or body sick, and Peter was a very sick
man at that minute. He had been addressed in such a frank and casual
manner. His own brain shot off at queer tangents and led him constantly
into unexpected places. The narrow side lane that opened up came into
view so suddenly that Peter, with the innocence of a four-year-old,
turned with military precision at the suggestion and looked over the
premises for the exact location of Linda. Eugene Snow had seen for
himself the thing that Katy had told him he would see if he looked for
it. Suddenly he held out his hand.
“As man to man, Morrison, in this instance,” he said in rather a
hoarse, breathless voice, “don’t you think it would be a good idea for
you and me to assert our manhood, to manage our own affairs, to select
our own wives if need be? If we really set ourselves to the job don’t
you believe we can work out our lives more to our liking than anyone
else can plan for us? You get the idea, don’t you, Morrison?”
Peter was facing the kitchen sink but he did not see it. His brain
was whirling. He did see Snow’s point of view. He did realize his
position. But what Mr. Snow knew of his affairs he could only guess.
The one thing Mr. Snow could not know was that Linda frankly admitted
her prepossession for her school chum, Donald Whiting, but in any event
if Peter could not have Linda he would much prefer occupying his dream
house alone. So he caught at the straw held out to him with both hands.
“I get you,” he said tersely. “It is not quite up to the mark of the
manhood we like to think we possess to let our lives be engineered by
a high-school kid. Suppose we do just quietly and masterfully assert
ourselves concerning our own affairs.”
“Suppose we do,” said Snow with finality.
Whereupon they shook hands with a grip that whitened their knuckles.
Then they went back to Lilac Valley and had their dinner together, and
Linda and Peter escorted Eugene Snow to his train and started him on
his return trip to San Francisco feeling very much better. Peter would
not allow Linda to drive him home at night, so he left her after the
Bear-cat had been safely placed in the garage. As she stood on the walk
beside him, strongly outlined in the moonlight, Peter studied Linda
whimsically. He said it half laughingly, but there was something to
think about in what he said:
“I’m just picturing, Linda, what a nice old lady you will be by the
time that High-School kid of yours spends four years in college, one on
the continent, and the Lord knows how many at mastering a profession.”
Linda looked at him with widened eyes.
“Why, what are you talking about, Peter? Are you moonstruck?” she
inquired solicitously. “Donald’s only a friend, you know. I love him
because he is the nicest companion; but there is nothing for you to be
silly about.”
Then Peter began to realize the truth. There wasn’t anything for him to
be concerned about. She had not the slightest notion what love meant,
even as she announced that she loved Donald.