“How did it come,” inquired Henry Anderson, “that you had that car jacked up so long?”
“Why, hasn’t anybody told you,” asked Linda, “about our day of the Black Shadow?”
“John Gilman wrote me when it happened,” said Peter softly, “but I don’t believe it has been mentioned before Henry. You tell him.”
Linda turned to Henry Anderson, and with trembling lips and paling cheeks, in a few brief sentences she gave him the details. Then she said to Peter Morrison in a low voice: “And that is the why of Marian Thorne’s white head. Anybody tell you that?”
“That white head puzzled me beyond anything I ever saw,” he said. “I meant to ask John about it. He used to talk to me and write to me often about her, and lately he hasn’t; when I came I saw the reason, and so you see I felt reticent on the subject.”
“Well, there’s nothing the matter with my tongue,” said Linda. “It’s loose at both ends. Marian was an expert driver. She drove with the same calm judgment and precision and graceful skill that she does everything else, but the curve was steep and something in the brakes was defective. It broke with a snap and there was not a thing she could do. Enough was left of the remains of the car to prove that. Ten days afterward her head was almost as white as snow. Before that it was as dark as mine. But her body is just as young and her heart is just as young and her face is even more beautiful. I do think that a white crown makes her lovelier than she was before. I have known Marian ever since I can remember, and I don’t know one thing about her that I could not look you straight in the eye and tell you all about. There is not a subterfuge or an evasion or a small mean deceit in her soul. She is the brainiest woman and the biggest woman I know.”
“I haven’t a doubt of it,” said Peter Morrison. “And while you are talking about nice women, we met a mighty fine one at Riverside on Sunday. Her name is Mary Louise Whiting. Do you know her?”
“Not personally,” said Linda. “I don’t recall that I ever saw her. I know her brother, Donald. He is the high-school boy who is having the wrestle with the Jap.”
“I liked her too,” said Henry Anderson. “And by the way, Miss Linda, haven’t bug-catchers any reputation at all as nest builders? Is it true that among feathered creatures the hen builds the home?”
“No, it’s not,” said Linda promptly. “Male birds make a splendid record carrying nest material. What is true is that in the majority of cases the female does the building.”