One instant she hugged him tight. If her lips did not brush his cheek, Peter deluded himself. Then she sprang up and ran from the garage. Later he took the coat from its nail, the papers from its pockets, and carefully looked them over. There was nothing among them that would give him the slightest clue to Linda’s conduct. He looked again, penetratingly, searchingly, for he must learn from them a reason; and no reason was apparent. With the coat in one hand and the papers in the other he stepped outside.
“Linda,” he said, “won’t you show me? Won’t you tell me? What is there about this to upset you?”
Linda closed her lips and shook her head. Once more Peter sought in her face, in her attitude the information he craved.
“Needn’t tell me,” he said, “that a girl who will face the desert and the mountains and the canyons and the sea is upset by a mouse.”
“Well, you should have seen Katy sitting in the midst of our supper with her feet rigidly extended before her!” cried the girl, struggling to regain her composure. “Put back that coat and come to your supper. It’s time for you to be fed now. The last workman has gone and we’ll barely have time to finish nicely and show Katy your dream house before it’s time to go.”
Peter came and sat in the place Linda indicated. His mind was whirling. There was something he did not understand, but in her own time, in her own way, a girl of Linda’s poise and self-possession would tell him what had occurred that could be responsible for the very peculiar things she had done. In some way she had experienced a shock too great for her usual self-possession. The hands with which she fished pickled onions from the bottle were still unsteady, and the corroboration Peter needed for his thoughts could be found in the dazed way in which Katy watched Linda as she hovered over her in serving her. But that was not the time. By and by the time would come. The thing to do was to trust Linda and await its coming. So Peter called on all the reserve wit and wisdom he had at command. He jested, told stories, and to Linda’s satisfaction and Katy’s delight, he ate his supper like a hungry man, frankly enjoying it, and when the meal was finished Peter took Katy over the house, explaining to her as much detail as was possible at that stage of its construction, while Linda followed with mute lips and rebellion surging in her heart. When leaving time came, while Katy packed the Bear-cat, Linda wandered across toward the spring, and Peter, feeling that possibly she might wish to speak with him, followed her. When he overtook her she looked at him straightly, her eyes showing the hurt her heart felt.
“Peter,” she said, “that first night you had dinner with us, was Henry Anderson out of your presence one minute from the time you came into the house until you left it?”
Peter stopped and studied the ground at his feet intently. Finally he said conclusively: “I would go on oath, Linda, that he was not. We were all together in the living room, all together in the dining room. We left together at night and John was with us.”
“I see,” said Linda. “Well, then, when you came back the next morning after Eileen, before you started on your trip, to hunt a location, was he with you all the time?”
Again Peter took his time to answer.