Janie on purpose to keep my eye on him."

Linda tried hard but she could not suppress a chuckle: "Of course you
would!" she murmured softly.

Eileen turned her back. That had been her first confidence to Linda.
She was so aggrieved at that moment that she could have told unanswering
walls her tribulations. It would have been better if she had done
so. She might have been able to construe silence as sympathy. Linda's
laughter she knew exactly how to interpret. "Served you right," was what
it meant.

"I hadn't the least notion you would take an interest in anything
concerning me," she said. "People can talk all they please about Mary
Louise Whiting being a perfect lady but she is a perfect beast. I have
met her repeatedly and she has always ignored me, and yesterday she
singled out for her special attention the most desirable man in my
party--"

"'Most desirable,'" breathed Linda. "Poor John! I see his second fiasco.
Lavender crystals, please!"

Eileen caught her lip in mortification. She had not intended to say what
she thought.

"Well, you can't claim," she hurried on to cover her confusion, "that it
was not an ill-bred, common trick for her to take possession of a man
of my party, and utterly ignore me. She has everything on earth that I
want; she treats me like a dog, and she could give me a glorious time by
merely nodding her head."

"I am quite sure you are mistaken," said Linda. "From what I've heard of
her, she wouldn't mistreat anyone. Very probably what she does is merely
to feel that she is not acquainted with you. You have an unfortunate
way, Eileen, of defeating your own ends. If you wanted to attract Mary
Louise Whiting, you missed the best chance you ever could have had, at
three o'clock Saturday afternoon, when you maliciously treated her only
brother as you would a mechanic, ordered him to our garage, and shut our
door in his face."

Eileen turned to Linda. Her mouth fell open. A ghastly greenish white
flooded her face.

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"I mean," said Linda, "that Donald Whiting was calling on me, and you
purposely sent him to the garage."

Crash down among the vanities of Eileen's dressing table went her lovely
head, and she broke into deep and violent sobs. Linda stood looking at
her a second, slowly shaking her head. Then she turned and went to her
room.

Later in the evening she remembered the Roman scarf and told Eileen
of what she had done, and she was unprepared f