Her Father's Daughter Part 24

"It might be," said Mr. Worthington, "managing matters i that way, that no one outside of ourselves need ever know of il Should your sister not draw on the private account in the mean time, she would be free to draw household cheques on the monthly income and if in the settlement of the estate she turns in this private account or accounts, she need never know of the restriction concerning this fund."

"Thank you very much," said Linda. "That will fix everything finely."

On her way to the street car, Linda's brain whirled.

"It's not conceivable," she said, "that Eileen should be enriching herself at my expense. I can't imagine her being dishonest in money affairs, and yet I can recall scarcely a circ.u.mstance in life in which Eileen has ever hesitated to be dishonest when a lie served her purpose better than the truth. Anyway, matters are safe now."

The next day the books were taken and a cheque for their value was waiting for Linda when she reached home. She cashed this cheque and went straight to Peter Morrison for his estimate of the expenses for the skylight and fireplace. When she asked for the bill Peter hesitated.

"You wouldn't accept this little addition to your study as a gift from Henry and me?" he asked lightly. "It would be a great pleasure to us if you would."

"I could accept stones that Henry Anderson had gathered from the mountains and canyons, and I could accept a verse carved on stone, and be delighted with the gift; but I couldn't accept hours of day labor at the present price of labor, so you will have to give me the bill, Peter."

Peter did not have the bill, but he had memoranda, and when Linda paid him she reflected that the current talk concerning the inflated price of labor was greatly exaggerated.

For two evenings as Linda returned from school and went to her room she glanced down the hall and smiled at the decoration remaining on Eileen's rug. The third evening it was gone, so that she knew Eileen was either in her room or had been there. She did not meet her sister until dinnertime. She was prepared to watch Eileen, to study her closely. She was not prepared to admire her, but in her heart she almost did that very thing. Eileen had practiced subterfuges so long, she was so accomplished, that it would have taken an expert to distinguish reality from subterfuge. She entered the dining room humming a gay tune. She was carefully dressed and appealingly beautiful. She blew a kiss to Linda and waved gaily to Katy.

"I was rather afraid," she said lightly, "that I might find you two in mourning when I got back. I never stayed so long before, did I? Seemed as if every friend I had made special demand on my time all at once.

Hope you haven't been dull without me."

"Oh, no," said Linda quietly. "Being away at school all day, of course I wouldn't know whether you were at home or not, and I have grown so accustomed to spending my evenings alone that I don't rely on you for entertainment at any time."

"In other words," said Eileen, "it doesn't make any difference to you where I am."

"Not so far as enjoying your company is concerned," said Linda.

"Otherwise, of course it makes a difference. I hope you had a happy time."

"Oh, I always have a happy time," answered Eileen lightly. "I certainly have the best friends."

"That's your good fortune," answered Linda.

At the close of the meal Linda sat waiting. Eileen gave Katy instructions to have things ready for a midnight lunch for her and John Gilman and then, humming her tune again, she left the dining room and went upstairs. Linda stood looking after her.

"Now or never," she said at last. "I have no business to let her meet John until I have recovered my self-respect. But the Lord help me to do the thing decently!"

So she followed Eileen up the stairway. She tapped at the door, and without waiting to hear whether she was invited or not, opened it and stepped inside. Eileen was sitting before the window, a big box of candy beside her, a magazine in her fingers.

Evidently she intended to keep her temper in case the coming interview threatened to become painful.

"I was half expecting you," she said, "you silly hothead. I found the cheque I wrote you when I got home this afternoon. That was a foolish thing to do. Why did you tear it up? If it were too large or if it were not enough why didn't you use it and ask for another? Because I had to be away that was merely to leave you something to go on until I got back."

Then Linda did the most disconcerting thing possible. In her effort at self-control she went too far. She merely folded her hands in her lap and sat looking straight at Eileen without saying one word. It did not show much on the surface, but Eileen really had a conscience, she really had a soul; Linda's eyes, resting rather speculatively on her, were honest eyes, and Eileen knew what she knew. She flushed and fidgeted, and at last she broke out impatiently: "Oh, for goodness' sake, Linda, don't play 'Patience-on-a-monument.' Speak up and say what it is that you want. If that cheque was not big enough, what will satisfy you?"

"Come to think of it," said Linda quietly, "I can get along with what I have for the short time until the legal settlement of our interests is due. You needn't bother any more about a cheque."

Eileen was surprised and her face showed it; and she was also relieved.

That too her face showed.

"I always knew," she said lightly, "that I had a little sister with a remarkably level head and good common sense. I am glad that you recognize the awful inflation of prices during the war period, and how I have had to skimp and scheme and save in order to make ends meet and to keep us going on Papa's meager income."

All Linda's good resolutions vanished. She was under strong nervous tension. It irritated her to have Eileen constantly referring to their monetary affairs as if they were practically paupers, as if their father's life had been a financial failure, as if he had not been able to realize from achievements recognized around the world a comfortable living for two women.

"Oh, good Lord!" she said shortly. "Bluff the rest of the world like a professional, Eileen, but why try it with me? You're right about my having common sense. I'll admit that I am using it now. I will be of age in a few days, and then we'll take John Gilman and go to the Consolidated Bank, and if it suits your convenience to be absent for four or five days at that period, I'll take John Gilman and we'll go together."

Eileen was amazed. The receding color in her cheeks left the rouge on them a ghastly, garish thing.

"Well, I won't do anything of the sort," she said hotly, "and neither will John Gilman."

"Unfortunately for you," answered Linda, "John Gilman is my guardian, not yours. He'll be forced to do what the law says he must, and what common decency tells him he must, no matter what his personal feelings are; and I might as well tell you that your absence has done you no good. You'd far better have come home, as you agreed to, and gone over the books and made me a decent allowance, because in your absence John came here to ask me where you were, and I know that he was anxious."

"He came here!" cried Eileen.

"Why, yes," said Linda. "Was it anything unusual? Hasn't he been coming here ever since I can remember? Evidently you didn't keep him as well posted this time as you usually do. He came here and asked for me."

"And I suppose," said Eileen, an ugly red beginning to rush into her white cheeks, "that you took pains to make things uncomfortable for me."

"I am very much afraid," said Linda, "that you are right. You have made things uncomfortable for me ever since I can remember, for I can't remember the time when you were not finding fault with me, putting me in the wrong and getting me criticized and punished if you possibly could.

It was a fair understanding that you should be here, and you were not, and I was seeing red about it; and just as John came in I found your note in the living room and read it aloud.'

"Oh, well, there was nothing in that," said Eileen in a relieved tone.

"Nothing in the wording of it, no," said Linda, "but there was everything in the intention back of it. Because you did not live up to your tacit agreement, and because I had been on high tension for two or three days, I lost my temper completely. I brought John Gilman up here and showed him the suite of rooms in which you have done for yourself, for four years. I gave him rather a thorough inventory of your dressing table and drawers, and then I opened the closet door and called his attention to the number and the quality of the garments hanging there.

The box underneath them I thought was a shoe box, but it didn't prove to be exactly that; and for that I want to tell you, as I have already told John, I am sorry. I wouldn't have done that if I had known what I was doing."

"Is that all?" inquired Eileen, making a desperate effort at self-control.

"Not quite," said Linda. "When I finished with your room, I took him back and showed him mine in even greater detail than I showed him yours.

I thought the contrast would be more enlightening than anything either one of us could say."

"And I suppose you realize," said Eileen bitterly, "that you lost me John Gilman when you did it."

"I?" said Linda. "I lost you John Gilman when I did it? But I didn't do it. You did it. You have been busy for four years doing it. If you hadn't done it, it wouldn't have been there for me to show him. I can't see that this is profitable. Certainly it's the most distressing thing that ever has occurred for me. But I didn't feel that I could let you meet John Gilman tonight without telling you what he knows. If you have any way to square your conscience and cleanse your soul before you meet him, you had better do it, for he's a mighty fine man and if you lose him you will have lost the best chance that is likely ever to come to you."

Linda sat studying Eileen. She saw the gallant effort she was making to keep her self-possession, to think with her accustomed rapidity, to strike upon some scheme whereby she could square herself. She rose and started toward the door.

"What you'll say to John I haven't the faintest notion," she said. "I told him very little. I just showed him."

Then she went out and closed the door after her. At the foot of the stairs she met Katy admitting Gilman. Without any preliminaries she said: "I repeat, John, that I'm sorry for what happened the other day.

I have just come from Eileen. She will be down as soon as Katy tells her you're here, no doubt. I have done what I told you I would. She knows what I showed you so you needn't employ any subterfuges. You can be frank and honest with each other."

"I wish to G.o.d we could," said John Gilman.

Linda went to her work. She decided that she would gauge what happened by the length of time John stayed. If he remained only a few minutes it would indicate that there had been a rupture. If he stayed as long as he usually did, the chances were that Eileen's wit had triumphed as usual.

At twelve o'clock Linda laid her pencils in the box, washed the brushes, and went down the back stairs to the ice chest for a gla.s.s of milk. The living room was still lighted and Linda thought Eileen's laugh quite as gay as she ever had heard it. Linda closed her lips very tight and slowly climbed the stairs. When she entered her room she walked up to the mirror and stared at herself in the gla.s.s for a long time, and then of herself she asked this question:

"Well, how do you suppose she did it?"