"How nice of you to come!" she returned. Determined not to be stiff, or show that she had noticed Linda's air of reserve, Bab tried to make her welcome very real, and she succeeded in this. But Linda's call she soon saw was not merely social. The girl crossed the room hesitantly, a slender, quiet creature, more womanly than girlish; and, having taken the chair by the window that Bab indicated, she sat waiting for Crabbe to withdraw. Obviously there was some special reason for her visit.
"You'll have tea, won't you?" asked Bab.
"Thanks, no," murmured Linda; "I can stay only a minute. I must be going on directly."
Bab dismissed the butler, and with a growing interest seated herself in a chair opposite her visitor. There was a formality about Miss Blair's manner that did not escape her. Though pleasant enough, she had something in her manner that held Bab effectually at a distance.
The conversation at the outset was aimless. To Linda manifestly it was an effort, and at times she came perilously near to rambling. There was to be a luncheon at the country club the week following, and she talked of that. Then, apropos of nothing, she remarked on a picture show she had seen in town, veering from that to a projected run of the drag hounds the following Saturday, the last meet of the season. Bab, in the pauses, led on the talk as best she could. But it was a difficult matter. Suddenly, in the midst of a sentence—something or other about a race meet the month following at the country club—Linda broke off with awkward abruptness. A faint frown of irritation swept across her brows.
"Let's be frank," she said bluntly; "I didn't come here for this. I've something I'd like to ask you." Her dark eyes on the girl opposite her, for a moment she paused. "Bab," she then asked quietly, "what are you doing to David?"
Blunt as the question was, and disconcerting, Bab already had guessed this was the purpose that had brought Linda to see her. She saw now, too, that it must have been her affair with David that had caused Linda's chilly reserve. Linda must have guessed what was happening. The color rushed into her face, which only added to her anger, for she resented showing her feelings.
"What do you mean?" she asked coldly.
"Don't be angry," Linda begged; "I don't mean to offend you. David, you know, has been my friend, my playmate, all my life. It's not just you that I question; I would have asked any girl. Don't you understand? David's a man, of course; but then, too, David's different. I can't stand by and see him hurt. Think how much he's had to bear already."