“John,” said Linda quietly, “I think it is time for the truth about Eileen between you and me. If you want me to answer that question candidly, I’ll answer it.”
“I want the truth,” said John Gilman gravely.
“Well,” said Linda, “I never knew Eileen to be honest about anything in all her life unless the truth served her better than an evasion. Her hair was not honest colour and it was not honest curl. Her eyebrows were not so dark as she made them. Her cheeks and lips were not so red, her forehead and throat were not so white, her form was not so perfect. Her friends were selected because they could serve her. As long as you were poor and struggling, Marian was welcome to you. When you won a great case and became prosperous and fame came rapidly, Eileen took you. I believe what I told you a minute ago: I think she has gone for good. I think she went because she had not been fair and she would not be forced to face the fact before you and me and the president of the Consolidated to-day. I think you will have to take your heart home to-night and I think that before the night is over you will realize what Marian felt when she knew that in addition to having been able to take you from her, Eileen was not a woman who would make you happy. I am glad, deeply glad, that there is not a drop of her blood in my veins, sorry as I am for you and much as I regret what has happened. I won’t ask you to stay to-night, because you must go through the same black waters Marian breasted, and you will want to be alone. Later, if you think of any way I can serve you, I will be glad for old sake’s sake; but you must not expect me ever to love you or respect your judgment as I did before the shadow fell.”
Then Linda rose, replaced the letter, turned the key in the lock, and quietly slipped out of the room.
When she opened her door and stepped into her room she paused in astonishment. Spread out upon the bed lay a dress of georgette with little touches of fur and broad ribbons of satin. In colour it was like the flame of seasoned beechwood. Across the foot of the bed hung petticoat, camisole, and hose, and beside the dress a pair of satin slippers exactly matching the hose, and they seemed the right size. Linda tiptoed to the side of the bed and delicately touched the dress, and then she saw a paper lying on the waist front, and picking it up read:
Lambie, here’s your birthday, from loving old Katy.
The lines were terse and to the point. Linda laid them down, and picking up the dress she walked to the mirror, and holding it under her chin glanced down the length of its reflection. What she saw almost stunned her.
“Oh, good Lord!” she said. “I can’t wear that. That isn’t me.”
Then she tossed the dress on the bed and started in a headlong rush to the kitchen. As she came through the door, “You blessed old darling!” she cried. “What am I going to say to make you know how I appreciate your lovely, lovely gift?”
Katy raised her head. There was something that is supposed to be the prerogative of royalty in the lift of it. Her smile was complacent in the extreme.