DUSKIN (7 page)

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.”

“Really?” said Carol again sweetly but distantly. It seemed to be a good word to bridge the chasm with. “It wasn’t a time to remember faces just then. We were all quite excited.”

“Yes, yes,” grinned Blintz, hastening on. “It was unfortunate of course. But what we want to know, young lady, is what’s to be done
now
? What are you going to do with that building of ours? The young man at the head of that job is being held up at every turn. I’m afraid he isn’t equal to the task. And it means a great deal to you as well as to us if the contract isn’t done on time. Do you think you can handle it? What are you going to do with Duskin when you find you can’t make him get done on time?”

“Fire him!” she said glibly, looking steadily in the eye of the man who had said that Duskin had his price. “Fire him and get someone who can’t be”—she hesitated just a flicker of an instant, then finished swiftly in one clear-cut word—
“bought.”

She turned quickly away lest she strike the lying lips before her, and in turning met the keen, grave eyes of the young man to whom she had just been introduced.

One look he gave her, searching—disapproving? What was it? There was no smile on his lips now, rather contempt. Had her words sounded flippant to his passing ear? She had a sense of wishing she might explain herself, turn back and say something that would justify the stand she had taken. But when she looked back he was gone, stalking to the far end of the room. She dared not look at Schlessinger and Blintz to get their reaction. She was depressed with the idea that she had somehow made a bad beginning. She had been too sure of herself. That little bit of open admiration at the first had turned her head perhaps. She had been too smart. She should have bided her time and not attempted to answer back. Perhaps they were sharp enough to have been put on their guard by her words. Oh, she had failed utterly, and right at the start! And that young stranger had given her a look which rankled in her soul. She could not get rid of the discomfort it gave her. Depression sat upon her soul like a sudden, mighty weight. It was just as she had thought it was going to be; she was not equal to the occasion. She ought to have refused to come. How she wished she might even now slip out the door and fly down the marble stairs that were visible through the arch and disappear into the street!

It was a relief when she was seated to find that the young man, who had suddenly become so distasteful, was seated far down the table on the other side, and that Schlessinger and Blintz were almost opposite to him, and therefore where they could not watch her nor she them. If it turned out that she was still unable to elude that speech, she would be much less distraught if she could keep them out of her sight.

As for the young man, she decided to put him out of her thoughts also. Who was he anyway but a stranger? What had he to do with the affair of the moment? He was doubtless some banker or other who did not matter much. If she could wing the rest of the company into line she might afford to forget him—one young man. She noticed with relief that the one other young woman was by his side and had only been invited for her sake. She was probably the daughter of some magnate or other connected with the business world who mattered much to the company. Perhaps the two were engaged.

Well, she would forget him, blot him out of the picture, as it were, and then perhaps she could go on and finish her part.

Oh, how glad she would be when the evening was over and she was free at last, free to go back to that quiet hotel room and that beautiful white bed and get rested! How tired she was! She wondered if she would ever get rested! She resolved to sleep as late as she chose in the morning. Perhaps she would even wait until afternoon or the next morning to continue her journey, if she didn’t feel rested tomorrow. There was no such great rush of course, if the Duskin man was off the job. There really was no point in getting there until he arrived and she could get down to business—fire him if necessary. She naturally couldn’t dismiss him from the service of the company while he was away.

Then someone on her left spoke to her and she was swept into the tide of talk.

They were a bright crowd of people, even the elderly cousin who had been requisitioned for the occasion. The conversation sparkled with wit and repartee. It was a new and stimulating experience to Carol, who had up until then sat quietly on the outside edge of business affairs and approached only to serve.

These were people of large affairs, used to managing great operations, conversant with the big things of the day, who spoke of millions as she would of dimes and quarters, who suggested building libraries or hospitals or art museums as if they were gods who could command and these would appear. They discussed Herculean undertakings as lightly as if they were trifles. She began to look upon them with awe. And
she
was expected to
speak
to these people. To represent great interests and intrigue their fancy! It was appalling. Like a death knell this thought rang an undertone as course succeeded delicious course, through fruit, soup, fish, game, salad, and confections. She ate the delectable concoctions as if she were in a dream, occasionally wondering what Mother and Betty would say if they could look in upon her, if they could taste these wonders of the culinary art and witness the lavish display of flowers and costly dishes. And here were these people toying with each course as if they were but the regular everyday bread and butter of life, rather than a succession of delicacies.