White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1930-10-24
by Evelyn Campbell
CHAPTER VII
Loves Labyrinths
Copyright by Evelyn Camp5ell.)
WNU Service

elevator was directly before her and
she could have gained ii with a few
steps. She turned, however, and
walked toward the grilled enclosure
where a gentleman, lesser gentleman
with other DINNER figures, was in
stalled in that curious naughty ST.
lence that Is peculiar to high-priced
hotels.
Linda's walk was one of the rarest
qualities she possessed. She was so
tall and slender that she seemed al
ways about to bend and break under
the demand of effort. Her wraps were
always slipping from her shoulders.
but never did Her eyes, half yelled,
appeared to see nothing, but she had
seen distinctly the looks that followed
and greeted her. The bellboys ON their
bench were watching her furtively: the
second gentleman at the desk leaned
on his pointed elbow to listen to her
and watch All of them saw the new
expensive hat and the pearls slipping
from her rich fur.
"My letters, please" Linda's voice
was sweet and very low. She spoke
as little as possible to such persons as
these. The letters were in her hand,
and she was turning away before she
said "Thank your in a negligent tone
as though that grilled-in group had no
meaning for her.
They looked after her hopelessly.
Ro rio
clerk looked doubtfully at a letter that
had been separated from the rest;
finally he tucked it away in private
pigeon hole. 1t would not do to make
mistake in this case.
But Linda knew nothing of this. She
passed on to the elevator. leisurely ex-
aiming the letters in her hand.
Linda no longer occupied Cousin
Amy's house when the family were
away. The fiasco Of her marriage was
hatfield secret, discreetly ignored
by her relatives, whose number seemed
to have dwindled perceptibly. 1t is
one thing to chaperen and champion a
young girl, very beautiful and pathet-
tcally poor, but quite another to be
responsible for a widow, however
young and beautiful, whose affairs, to
say the least, are in a middle and
deeply mysterious.
Cousin Amy Ralston told some of
the others that she always felt cold
chill down her back when she heard
Linda's voice in the hall, so it hap
IN
became so cold so brief, that Linda,
not wishing to give pain, refrained al
most wholly from communication with
her sensitive relations
She had plenty of friends Any
woman free and pretty, dressing more
than well and seen at her best every
where, is bound to have friends and
invitations. Only to Linda the people
who took her about and entertained
her seemed oddly less like friends than
adversaries. 1t was curious feeling
that mad grown upon her lately. She
was always on guard, always standing
off little while she smiled and talked
softly. 1t was as If a hundred pairs
of eyes were seeking for crack in her
arnior which she was determined they
should not find.
For a long time she had had
splendid time. She was not in the
strict sense of the word woman of
society. Rather, she took what she
wanted of society and let the rest, the
bores, the dull parties, the commit
tees, alone. The people she was seen
with were usually charming though
some were little vague about them
selves. There we're always plenty of
hosts, daZed by the ease. the grace of
Linda and her friends, who were quite
ready to pay for the party.
It had puzzled them all that she had
not married again. There must have
been plenty of men to marry her
rich, desirable men who could give
her the setting she deserved. But
Linda was family amused by this won
der. Talk of marriage always brought
poignanty before her the vision of the
aftermath of her twenty-four hour
honeymoon, for 1t had lasted no longer
than that, she knew.
But after she met Brian Anstey she
began to think of marriage again.
Not consciously, though. Marriage
as form or ceremony did not enter
her mind Sine would have checked
the idea in it's birth, If her conscious
self had not been drugged by the art
full subconscious that knows SO we'll
how to take it's victims unaware.
Linda could have argued herself out
Of love with poor young man if love
had not stolen upon her and blinded
her eyes with beauty and silenced her
lips and deafened her with dreams
She never thought of marriage but she
began to chafe at the life she led.
The handsome rooms she occupied,
strewn with costly trifles, prisoned her
restlessness. She wearied of going
about and wearied of her gowns and
TIN meaningless jargon Of her friends
She began to think of quiet, cool. sim
pie spots; to visualize what she had
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