the second
skewer. Then she brought from the car the bucket of pulp she had taken
from the barrel cactus, transferred it to a piece of cheesecloth and
deftly extracted the juice. To this she added the contents of a thermos
bottle containing a pint of sugar that had been brought to the boiling
point with a pint of water and poured over some chopped spearmint to
which had been added the juice of half a dozen lemons and three or four
oranges. From a small, metal-lined compartment, Linda took a chunk of
ice and dropped it into this mixture.

She was sitting on the ground, one foot doubled under her, the other
extended. She had taken off her hat; the wind and the bushes had
roughened her hair. Exercise had brought deep red to her cheeks and
her lips. Happiness had brought a mellow glow to her dark eyes. She
had turned back her sleeves, and her slender hands were fascinatingly
graceful in their deft handling of everything she touched. They were
a second edition of the hands with which Alexander Strong had felt out
defective nerve systems and made delicate muscular adjustments. She was
wholly absorbed in what she was doing. Sitting on the blanket across
from her Donald Whiting was wholly absorbed in her and he was thinking.
He was planning how he could please her, how he could earn her
friendship. He was admitting to himself that he had very little, if
anything, to show for hours of time that he had spent in dancing, at
card games, beach picnics, and races. All these things had been amusing.
But he had nothing to show for the time he had spent or the money he had
wasted. Nothing had happened that in any way equipped him for his battle
with Oka Sayye. Conversely, this girl, whom he had resented, whom he had
criticized, who had claimed his notice only by her radical difference
from the other girls, had managed, during the few minutes he had first
talked with her in the hall, to wound his pride, to spur his ambition,
to start him on a course that must end in lasting and material benefit
to him even if he failed in making a higher record of scholarship than
Oka Sayye. It was very certain that the exercise he was giving his
brain must be beneficial. He had learned many things that were intensely
interesting to him and he had not even touched the surface of what he
could see that she had been taught by her father or had learned through
experience and personal investigation. She had been coming to the
mountains and the canyons alone,