He turned his face toward the
length of Lilac Valley and stood, very tall and straight, looking
far away before him. Presently he looked down at Linda.
"Even so," he said softly. "My shoulders are broad enough; I
have a brain; and I am not afraid to work. If my heart is not
quite big enough yet, I see very clearly how it can be made to
expand."
"I have been told," said Linda in a low voice, "that Mary Louise
Whiting is a perfect darling."
Peter looked at her from the top of her black head to the tips of
her brown shoes. He could have counted the freckles bridging her
nose. The sunburn on her cheeks was very visible; there was
something arresting in the depth of her eyes, the curve of her
lips, the lithe slenderness of her young body; she gave the
effect of something smoldering inside that would leap at a
breath.
"I was not thinking of Miss Whiting," he said soberly.
Henry Anderson was watching. Now he turned his back and
commenced talking about plans, but in his heart he said: "So
that's the lay of the land. You've got to hustle yourself,
Henry, or you won't have the ghost of a show."
Later, when they motored down the valley and stopped at the
Strong residence, Peter refused to be monopolized by Eileen. He
climbed the two flights of stairs with Henry Anderson and Linda
and exhausted his fund of suggestions as to what could be done to
that empty billiard room to make an attractive study of it.
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