DUSKIN Read online

  “But really—” began Carol, bewildered by all that was expected of her, “I’m not—I can’t—I didn’t come out here to—”

  “I know,” laughed Fawcett with his easy air of sliding everything off lightly. “But you must, you will, you know. You’re here, you know, and Uncle Caleb isn’t, so that’s that. Here’s our station. Shall we go? Let me carry the briefcase. Yes, porter, the bag. How much time do you want to rest and dress, Miss Berkley? Would you rather talk before or after? I can arrange my time to suit yours. But we must go over those papers of my uncle’s or we might get all balled up tonight.”

  Carol found herself being whirled through the strange city streets in a daze. She seemed no longer to have the power to protest. Some force stronger than herself had taken possession of her now. She had agreed to be its servant, and this was the result. She was being made to attend a banquet—the dinner had grown to the proportions of a banquet now, and relentlessly she was being drawn on to attend it and to make a speech before a lot of men! It choked her to think of it, and yet somehow she could do nothing about it. Her trunk, too, had joined the conspirators and was riding behind with an air of disloyalty that made her half afraid.

  She looked in awe at the magnificent structure before which they presently stopped. The excellent hotel of the seashore resort receded into oblivion before the splendors of this stately portal. She stepped inside with Mr. Fawcett and suddenly felt very small and insignificant indeed. What would Mother and Betty say when they heard how she was housed in Chicago?

  As she stood at the desk while her escort arranged for the room, which he had had reserved earlier in the day, she glimpsed a glorified elevator in luxurious upholstery and bronze, and watched two men; a long, lank one and a stout, short fellow in a checked suit; step inside. They turned around and she saw their two faces as the bronze door clanked its noisy lattice shut and they were lifted out of her sight. Her heart seemed to go dead within her. Who were those two men?

  Up in her room Carol opened her bag. There on the top was her Bible, and she remembered that the day was well on and she had not yet kept her promise to her mother. It might be after midnight when she got back from the banquet; better get this over with.

  A card dropped out as she picked up the book. On it was written in her mother’s careful script, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

  Poor Mother! She was always doing things like that hoping they would get across.

  Impatiently Carol fluttered over the leaves of the Bible. Proverbs. That was a nice impersonal book; it would have short, crisp verses and not take much time. Time was going fast and she must keep at least the letter of her promise. At random she opened at the third chapter and caught at a verse: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

  How strange! It was almost as if the verses were written for her. She put the book sharply down on the dressing table and went on with her dressing, yet all the time in her heart putting up some sort of a wild little longing that the promise might be made good in what she was about to do. Whether it was all prayer, or part superstition, or merely a reversion to a childish habit, she was not quite sure.

  Chapter 4

  Carol chose the jade velvet—partly because it was the first thing in sight when she opened her trunk and seemed to revive her drooping spirits with its delicate, elusive color, and partly because it was the grandest thing she owned, the only dress in her wardrobe that had not been made at home. It was a little bargain that a friend who was a buyer in a large department store had picked up abroad, worn once, then decided was unbecoming to her sallow complexion and sold to Carol at a ridiculously low price. Carol had never hoped to own a real imported dress until this dawned upon her excited vision. She knew in her heart when she bought it that she was scarcely justified in buying a dress like this for the few times it would be possible or appropriate in her busy life to wear it.

  But now it flung its delicate beauty at her triumphant. Here, at last its justification, was an occasion fully equal to the gown, and of course it was what she would wear. For a few minutes she 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 was not thinking of all this; she was examining herself critically from the standpoint of the world. Did she look like a representative of a great New York firm ought to
look to undertake the business of the evening? In the words of her small brother at home, did she look “as if she knew her onions?”

  While she was still critically, uncertainly, pondering the question, the telephone rang and a voice from the office made it known that Mr. Fawcett was awaiting her coming.

  With a quick glance into the mirror and a catch of her breath at the thought that she was about to go out on the most tenuous undertaking she had ever yet attempted, she threw her white evening cloak around her shoulders and gave another glance into the mirror with a tender thought for the mother and sister whose secret purchase the wrap had been. She knew the many trips to the stores they had taken in search of just the right thing, their glee over having found one with some lovely white fur on the collar. She had thought to wear it to the beach for the first time tonight, but here she was in a far-off city about to go to a banquet, and thanks to her mother and sister there was nothing wanting from the conventional outfits that other people wore on such occasions. Feeling comfortable in this knowledge, she snapped out the light, locked her door, and went down to meet Mr. Frederick Fawcett.

  She would not have been human if she had not noticed his look of not only hearty approval but genuine admiration when he caught sight of her. It gave her the confidence that she needed for what she had to do that evening, the part she had to play for the sake of her employer who lay ill and could not do it for himself.

  That was what clothes ought to be, she reflected, a sort of armor for the fight of life. It was well if one could have good armor and know that it fitted lightly and well and would not cause hindrance in the thick of the fight. She did not want to think how she would fair when it came to making her speech.

  Coming down in the elevator had brought to mind the two men, but she did not see them in the brightly lit lobby anywhere. She gave a hasty glance around the lofty space, marble arched and palm shadowed. It was a lovely place with nothing in sight to annoy or make afraid. Out the arched doorway there were two men in evening dress getting into a taxi, and one was tall and one was short, but the two she dreaded would never wear tuxedos and high hats! They were surely not of that class!

  Frederick Fawcett had brought his own car, and Carol was whirled away to another great hotel, also palm shadowed, marble arched, and pillared in great vistas of beauty. Another elevator carried them up to a high floor and landed them in the rooms prepared for the banquet. Carol’s panic began as she went to the cloakroom alone, with a sudden rush of horror over what was to come next, a sudden startling possibility that she might be the only woman present among no knowing how many men!

  Well, if that was the case she would try to act as if it were a perfectly ordinary situation, and keep her dignity and say as little as possible under the circumstances. She was a businesswoman on a mission, and that was all. She was not there socially. She would not forget that for an instant. Thus she armored her soul.

  But Frederick Fawcett had not been raised in society for nothing. In the brief interval between the time when he had left her and the moment when he called for her, he had somehow succeeded in procuring three other women guests for the evening, though none of them had expected until then to be present. One was an elderly cousin who was thrilled at the idea of getting in on a dinner with notables, one a young girl about Carol’s age, and the third the wife of a staid and elderly bank president who was himself one of the original guests. Fawcett had begged the presence of the ladies as a special favor in view of the fact that the representative of the guest of honor had turned out to be a woman, and he did not wish her to be uncomfortable.

  Carol drew a long breath when she emerged from the cloakroom and saw them, clad in hasty conventional black, but she looked doubtfully at her own soft brightness and wondered if it would be too conspicuous.

  She did not know how lovely she looked as she stood poised at the entrance and glanced around her. More than one conversation hung in midair while all eyes were turned toward her, a distinguished and lovely guest indeed. Her mother—could she have seen her at that moment—would certainly have thought again, “Carol, you are too good looking to be going off alone among a lot of men.”

  A young man, himself good to look at, was standing not far from the doorway talking with a white-haired financier. At the general hush that followed Carol’s arrival, he looked up and saw her—so exquisite, so natural, so full of character—and forgot what he had been saying. He had not known that the modern world still held a girl like that. For a moment he watched her, expecting her to dissolve into a hard, modern siren under his glance; he was a bit of a cynic about girls. Carol’s eyes were involuntarily drawn to meet his. Just for an instant her glance lingered, appraising him. He certainly had an interesting face. Then she saw him with his companion coming toward her and let her eyes go on around the room.

  Up to this point she was keenly conscious of herself, of how she was carrying herself.

  But suddenly she forgot herself; forgot the company of strangers; forgot that an extremely good-looking young man, in fact the most interesting looking man she ever remembered to have seen, was on his way across the room apparently in order to be introduced to her; forgot everything except that she was just Carol Berkley, the secretary of the Fawcett Construction Company masquerading as a representative of the company itself, and that there across the room from her stood those two awful men!

  They were both in evening dress, but they had not changed their characters. The little beastly eyes of the short one glinted just as cunningly from his fat, pink face, and his chins lay in just as uncomely ropes above a full dress shirt as when he had worn his checked business suit, and the long fox nose and receding chin of the tall one looked even more fox-like over a white tie than over the gaudy red-striped one he had worn in the train. There was no mistaking them, but how did they get in here? And what should she do about it?

  She looked wildly around for Mr. Fawcett, but he was at the far end of the room saying something to the head waiter about the arrangement of seats. Besides, it would not do to tell him now that these two men were crooks. She must find out who they were. She must be controlled and do the wise thing. Here was the test of her fitness to perform her errand. These men must not guess anything from her attitude. They must not know that she recognized them.

  It was as if the situation suddenly stalked up to her and challenged her there in the big archway of the banquet hall, before all those people, and told her to make good now, once and for all, or else own herself beaten and run from the place! She met the issue without wavering. She made her eyes pass over those two grinning countenances, rest lightly here and there around the room, and come back to the group of people nearest her. She made herself smile, a frozen little waif of a smile perhaps—but still she was among strangers and they would not know the warm, pleasant lighting of her natural smile. She made her heart stop its pounding and, taking a deep breath, smiled again more naturally this time. Was she going to be able to put it across? She wasn’t sure yet. Her head was whirling and she scarcely distinguished between the mass of faces that bobbed and chattered before her. Yet only a heightened color and a certain brilliancy of her eyes gave outward sign of her perturbation.

  The exceedingly good-looking young man arrived and was introduced by Mr. Fawcett, who suddenly appeared at her side along with the distinguished financier. But she scarcely saw them. She acknowledged the introductions with a cool, sweet aloofness, but she did not hear their names, and suddenly the two men whom she dreaded appeared in front of her, and Frederick Fawcett said, “Miss Berkley, let me introduce Mr. Schlessinger and Mr. Blintz. You will remember I told you we were to be favored by their presence.”

  Carol turned quickly to face the two men who had seemed to haunt her steps since she started!

  Schlessinger and Blintz! Could it be that she had heard the names correctly! Could those two unspeakable hounds be the two men for whom that troublesome building was being built? What did it all mean?

  She had herself
well in hand. She hoped she did not look startled. She acknowledged the introduction gravely, with a certain dignity that held in check the air of familiarity with which they attempted to approach her.

  “Yes, we’ve met before, I think,” said Blintz with a knowing grin, the same that he had given her in the sleeper section before she hastily changed her reservation.

  He was all too evidently waiting for her to acknowledge the acquaintance. Carol felt a cold horror gripping at her throat. Her lips seemed frozen past all smiling. She lifted her eyebrows a trifle, questioningly. There was almost haughtiness in her tones.

  “Really?” she said out of lips that seemed to have lost their facile curves. “Aren’t you mistaken?”

  The man stared at her.

  “We were in the same section in the sleeper,” reminded Blintz with something that might have been almost a snicker in his voice.

  Still Carol managed to keep that calm, questioning look, lifting her brows again gravely.

  “I believe there was someone else in the section where I sat first,” she said evenly. “I was quite occupied in getting settled in the drawing room. I had to leave so suddenly that I had no opportunity to find out where my reservations were beforehand.”

  “But we met you before that in Mr. Fawcett’s private office,” insisted Schlessinger, coming to the front now, “just as they were bringing Fawcett in, you remember? We told you we had an appointment with him, you know.”