“So I should,” said Linda drily. “So I should.”
Then she led him to the back of the house and talked the incident out of his mind as cleverly as possible by giving him an intensive botanical study of Cotyledon. But she could not interest him quite so deeply as she had hoped, for presently he said: “Eileen tells me that you’re parting with some of the books.”
“Only technical ones for which I could have no possible use,” said Linda. “I need clothes, and have found that had I a proper place to work in and proper tools to work with, I could earn quite a bit with my brush and pencil, and so I am trying to get enough money together to fit up the billiard room for a workroom, since nobody uses it for anything else.”
“I see,” said John Gilman. “I suppose running a house is extremely expensive these days, but even so the income from your estate should be sufficient to dress a schoolgirl and provide for anything you would want in the way of furnishing a workroom.”
“That’s what I have always thought myself,” said Linda; “but Eileen doesn’t agree with me, and she handles the money. When the first of the month comes, we are planning to go over things together, and she is going to make me a proper allowance.”
“That is exactly as it should be,” said Gilman. “I never realized till the other night at dinner that you have grown such a great girl, Linda. That’s fine! Fix your workroom the way you would like to have it, and if there’s anything I can do to help you in any way, you have only to command me. I haven’t seen you often lately.”
“No,” said Linda, “but I don’t feel that it is exactly my fault. Marian and I were always pals. When I saw that you preferred Eileen, I kept with Marian to comfort her all I could. I don’t suppose she cared, particularly. She couldn’t have, or she would at least have made some effort to prevent Eileen from monopolizing you. She probably was mighty glad to be rid of you; but since you had been together so much, I thought she might miss you, so I tried to cover your defection.”
John Gilman’s face flushed. He stood very still, while he seemed deeply thoughtful.
“Of course you were free to follow your inclinations, or Eileen’s machinations, whichever you did follow,” Linda said lightly, “but ‘them as knows’ could tell you, John, as Katy so well puts it, that you have made the mistake of your young life.”
Then she turned and went to the garage, leaving John to his visit with Eileen.