Her Father's Daughter Part 42

"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 portiere 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 favorite chair?"

"You know," she said, "that is a joke. I am so unfamiliar with this room that I haven't any favorite chair. I'll have to take the nearest, like Th.o.r.eau 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 establis.h.i.+ng a relations.h.i.+p 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 coin' 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 forte of Linda standing beside her, a rea.s.suring 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 n.o.body 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 rely lovely things she can strike on paper with her pencil and light up with her joyous colors. 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."