第67章 Spanish Iris(2)

win, as I really have a sneaking hope that I shall, since I have condensed the best of two dozen houses into one and exhausted my imagination on my dream home, I will surely telegraph, and you can make it a day of jubilee. If I fail, I will try to find out where my dream was not true and what can be done to make it materialize properly; but between us, Linda girl, I am going to be dreadfully disappointed. I could use the material value that prize represents. I could start my life work which I hope to do in Lilac Valley on the prestige and the background that it would give me. I don't know, Linda, whether you ever learned to pray or not, but I have, and it's a thing that helps when the black shadow comes, when you reach the land of "benefits forgot and friends remembered not."And this reminds me that I should not write to my very dearest friend who has her own problems and make her heart sad with mine;so to the joyful news of my two friends add a third, Linda, for Iam going to tell you a secret because it will make you happy.

Since I have been in San Francisco some man, who for a reason of his own does not tell me his name, has been writing me extremely attractive letters. I have had several of them and I can't tell you, Linda, what they mean to me or how they help me. There is a touch of whimsy about them. I can't as yet connect them with anybody I ever met, but to me they are taking the place of a little lunch on the bread of life. They are such real, such vivid, such alive letters from such a real person that I have been doing the very foolish and romantic thing of answering them as my heart dictates and signing my own name to them, which on the surface looks unwise when the man in the case keeps his identity in the background; but since he knows me and knows my name it seems useless to do anything else: and answer these letters I shall and must; because every one of them is to me a strong light thrown on John Gilman. Every time one of these letters comes to me I have the feeling that I would like to reach out through space and pick up the man who is writing them and dangle him before Eileen and say to her: "Take HIM. I dare you to take HIM." And my confidence, Linda, is positively supreme that she could not do it.

You know, between us, Linda, we regarded Eileen as a rare creature, a kind of exotic thing, made to be kept in a glass house with tempered air and warmed water; but as I go about the city and at times amuse myself at concerts and theaters, I am rather dazed to tell you, honey, that the world is chock full of Eileens. On the streets, in the stores, everywhere I go, sometimes half a dozen times in a day I say to myself: "There goes Eileen." I haven't a doubt that Eileen has a heart, if it has not become so calloused that nobody could ever reach it, and I suspect she has a soul, but the more I see of her kind the more I feel that John Gilman may have to breast rather black water before he finds them.

With dearest love, be sure to remember me to Katherine O'Donovan.

Hug her tight and give her my unqualified love. Don't let her forget me.

As ever,MARIAN.

This was the letter that Linda read once, then she read it again and then she read it a third time, and after that she lost count and reread it whenever she was not busy doing something else, for it was a letter that was the next thing to laying hands upon Marian. The part of the letter concerning the unknown man who was writing Marian, Linda pondered over deeply.

"That is the best thing I ever did in my life," she said in self-commendation. "It's doing more than I hoped it would. It's giving Marian something to think about. It's giving her an interest in life. It's distracting her attention. Without saying a word about John Gilman it is making her see for herself the weak spots in him through the very subtle method of calling her attention to the strength that may lie in another man. For once in your life, Linda, you have done something strictly worth while. The thing for you to do is to keep it up, and in order to keep it up, to make each letter fresh and original, you will have to do a good deal of sticking around Peter Morrison's location and absorbing rather thoroughly the things he says. Peter doesn't know he is writing those letters but he is in them till it's a wonder Marian does not hear him drawl and see the imps twisting his lips as she reads them. Before I write another single one I'll go see Peter. Maybe he will have that article written. I'll take a pencil, and as he reads I'll jot down the salient points and then I'll come home and work out a head and tail piece for him to send in with it, and in that way I'll ease my soul about the skylight and the fireplace."So Linda took pad and pencils, raided Katy for everything she could find that was temptingly edible, climbed into the Bear Cat, and went to see Peter as frankly as she would have crossed the lawn to visit Marian. He was not in the garage when she stopped her car before it, but the workmen told her that he had strolled up the mountain and that probably he would return soon. Learning that he had been gone but a short time Linda set the Bear Cat squalling at the top of its voice. Then she took possession of the garage, and clearing Peter's worktable spread upon it the food she had brought, and then started out to find some flowers for decorations. When Peter came upon the scene he found Linda, flushed and brilliant eyed, holding before him a big bouquet of alder bloom, the last of the lilacs she had found in a cool, shaded place, pink filaree, blue lupin, and white mahogany panicles. "Peter," she cried. "you can't guess what I have been doing!"Peter glanced at the flowers.

"Isn't it obvious?" he inquired.