"You're not as funny as usual," Linda decided critically. "That,
too, disturbs me," he replied. "It looks even more unpromising for
the near future."




XXI


In her room Linda thought, momentarily, of Arnaud Hallet; whatever
might have been serious in her attitude toward him dissolved by the
lightness of his speech. Dodge Pleydon appealed irresistibly to her
deepest feelings. Now her mental confusion was at least clear in
that she knew what troubled her. It was not new, it extended even to
times before Pleydon had entered her life--the difficulties
presented by the term "love."

In her mind it was divided into two or three widely different
aspects, phases which she was unable to reconcile. Her mother, in
the beginning, had informed her that love was a nuisance. To be
happy, a man must love you without any corresponding return; this
was necessary to his complete management, the securing of the
greatest possible amount of new clothes. It was as far as love
should be allowed to enter marriage. But that reality, with a
complete expression in shopping, was distant from the immaterial and
delicate emotions that in her responded to Pleydon.

Linda had been familiar with the materials, the processes, of what,