DUSKIN by Grace Livingston Hill Page A

hugged the thought to her heart. The money had not been misspent after all, for she needed something like this to carry off her part in the evening. Utterly without experience either socially or commercially, she must have something to back her up. She had always scorned women who depended for their successes upon clothes, but now clothes suddenly took on a more important part in the matters of life. For if she had no speech to charm the guests with, whom she was expected to entertain as part of her job, no brilliant sayings to make them forget her lack of business experience, at least she could give them this luscious color to look at while she said a few simple words.
    While she excitedly hunted for silver shoes and stockings, she almost forgot the two men whose sudden appearance in the hotel had so startled her before she came to her room. After all, they had journeyed to Chicago in the same train; what could be more natural than that they should happen on the same hotel? It was ridiculous to think they were following her. They were becoming an obsession. They very likely had no idea who she was. They were just a pair of rude men, somehow mixed up in the affairs of the Fawcett Construction Company, as hired henchmen likely, from somebody who had a grudge against the Fawcetts. Anyhow, what was the use of letting them worry her tonight? She certainly was safe enough for the present and so was her business. Tomorrow would be time enough to consider this case, and perhaps tonight she might find someone in whom she would care to confide, someone of whom to ask advice. But no, it would be better to keep things to herself until she could get a message through to Mr. Fawcett himself. Perhaps in a few days he would be better, might even be well enough to talk on the phone, or better still to come on by the end of the next week and shoulder the whole responsibility.
    With this comforting reflection she went about the business of dressing with something like actual pleasure. Of course she was tired, but the excitement of the evening had made her forget.
    She turned on the water in her wonderful white bathroom and thought how she would describe it all to Mother and Betty—this more than excellent hotel in which she was to be housed for the night. A telephone by her luxurious bed, lights in every conceivable corner where one could possibly desire to see, a dream of a desk with an assortment of important-looking stationery of various sizes and shapes! She certainly would write at least a note home that night before she slept no matter how sleepy she was when she returned to the hotel.
    Refreshed by a luxurious bath and arrayed at last in the lovely dress, she stood before the mirror and looked at herself critically. She was startled to see how little she resembled the quiet, somberly dressed secretary from the inner office of the Fawcett Construction Company. In the first place, there was a radiance about her face that she could not in the least understand, like a child off on a picnic. Was it possible that after all she was
enjoying
this impossible job which she had undertaken? She looked herself straight in the eye and resolved to have it out with herself when she was rested from this evening. She must understand her own soul and its motives or she surely would never be able to go on with things.
    But aside from the radiance of her face, she was thrilled to know that she looked like a lady, every inch of her, from the tip of her silver shoe to the crown of the red-gold waves of her shining hair. The lines of her gown were simple and perfect, and the light powdering of glittering specks was just enough to relieve the plainness of the dress. She looked like some lovely evening moth about to fly in the moonlight. The little string of inexpensive but nicely cut crystal beads around her throat seemed to be a part of the dress, and the lights and shades on the velvet reminded of nothing else but the bloom on a butterfly’s wing.
    But Carol