orated with candlesticks and
silver-framed pictures. Here the drawers revealed heaps of embroidered
underclothing and silken garments. Then she walked to the closet and
threw the door wide.

She pushed hangers on their rods, sliding before the perplexed and
bewildered man dress after dress of lace and georgette, walking suits of
cloth, street dresses of silk, and pretty afternoon gowns, heavy coats,
light coats, a beautiful evening coat. Linda took this down and held it
in front of John Gilman.

"I see things marked in store windows," she said. "Eileen paid not a
penny less than three hundred for this one coat. Look at the rows of
shoes, and pumps, and slippers, and what that box is or I don't know."

Linda slid to the light a box screened by the hanging dresses, and
with the toe of her shoe lifted the lid, disclosing a complete smoking
outfit--case after case of cigarettes. Linda dropped the lid and shoved
the box back. She stood silent a second, then she looked at John Gilman.

"That is the way things go in this world," she said quietly. "Whenever
you lose your temper, you always do something you didn't intend to do
when you started. I didn't know that, and I wouldn't have shown it to
you purposely if I had known it; but it doesn't alter the fact that you
should know it. If you did know it no harm's done but if you didn't know
it, you shouldn't be allowed to marry Eileen without knowing as much
about her as you did about Marian, and there was nothing about Marian
that you didn't know. I am sorry for that, but since I have started this
I am going through with it. Now give me just one minute more."

Then she went down the hall, threw open the door to her room, and
walking in said: "You have seen Eileen's surroundings; now take a look
at mine. There's my bed; there's my dresser and toilet articles; and
this is my wardrobe."

She opened the closet door and exhibited a pair of overalls in which she
watered her desert garden. Next ranged her khaki breeches and felt hat.
Then hung the old serge school dress, beside it the extra skirt and
orange blouse. The stack of underclothing on the shelves was pitifully
small, visibly dilapidated. Two or three outgrown gingham dresses hung
forlornly on the opposite wall. Linda stood tall and straight before
John Gilman.

"What I have on and one other waist constitute my wardrobe," she said,
"and I told Eileen where to get this dress and suggested it before I got
it."

Gilman lo