“That is positively sacrilegious,” said Linda, lifting her hands to her rough black hair. “Never in my life saw anything lovelier than the rich gold on Louise Whiting’s bare head as she bent to release her brakes and start her car. A black head looks like a cinder bed beside it; and only think what a sunburst it will be when Mary Louise kneels down beside the iris.”
When they had finished their supper Linda gathered up the remnants and put them in the car, then she laid a notebook and pencil on the table.
“Now I want to hear that article,” she said. “I knew you would do it over the minute I was gone, and I knew you would keep it to read to me before you sent it.”
“Hm,” said Peter. “Is it second sight or psychoanalysis or telepathy, or what?”
“Mostly ‘what’,” laughed Linda. “I merely knew. The workmen are gone and everything is quiet now, Peter. Begin. I am crazy to get the particular angle from which you ‘make the world safe for democracy.’ John used to call our attention to your articles during the war. He said we had not sent another man to France who could write as humanely and as interestingly as you did. I wish I had kept those articles; because I didn’t get anything from them to compare with what I can get since I have a slight acquaintance with the procession that marches around your mouth. Peter, you will have to watch that mouth of yours. It’s an awfully betraying feature. So long as it’s occupied with politics and the fads and the foibles and the sins and the foolishness and the extravagances of humanity, it’s all very well. But if you ever get in trouble or if ever your heart hurts, or you get mad enough to kill somebody, that mouth of yours is going to be a most awfully revealing feature, Peter. You will have hard work to settle it down into hard-and-fast noncommittal lines.”
Peter looked at the girl steadily.
“Have you specialized on my mouth?” he asked.
“Huh-umph!” said Linda, shaking her head vigorously. “When I specialize I use a pin and a microscope and go right to the root of matters as I was taught. This is superficial. I am extemporizing now.”
“Well, if this is extemporizing,” said Peter, “God help my soul if you ever go at me with a pin and a microscope.”
“Oh, but I won’t!” cried Linda. “It wouldn’t be kind to pin your friends on a setting board and use a microscope on them. You might see things that were strictly private. You might see things they wouldn’t want you to see. They might not be your friends any more if you did that. When I make a friend I just take him on trust like I did Donald. You’re my friend, aren’t you, Peter?”