Duskin (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill

I don’t know what your father would have said to me if he had known I would let you go off alone like this. You’ve always been sheltered.”

      “Exactly, little mother!” said Carol with a firm set of her lips. “I have! But the time has come when I’ve got to take care of myself for a while. It does come, you know, no matter how long you try to hold it off. I’m not a baby, and you know you really don’t believe that I can’t take care of myself after all these years you’ve spent on bringing me up. Isn’t it almost time I had a chance to try myself out? Come now, wipe away those tears, little mother, and forget it. I’m going to have the time of my life out there! It’s going to be different from anything I ever did, and I’m going to make a story out of it to write to you. There may not be any sand, but I’ll warrant there’s a decent hotel, and very likely I’ll meet up with plenty of rocks of one sort or another before I get done. It’s really going to be fabulous when I get going, so don’t have any more worries about it.”

      She forced a smile and her mother brushed an anxious tear furtively from her cheek and tried to summon a gleam of a smile to answer her with. But the young sister continued to look displeased.

      “I don’t see how you thought it was right to disappoint Jean and Edith,” she put in. “Did you tell them? Weren’t they terribly upset about it?”

      “I just had time to call up Jean and tell her in one sentence before I left the office. Yes, Jean was rather put out. I’m afraid I didn’t make her see how necessary it was that I should go. I wish you’d call her up, Betts, when you get home, and try to make her understand. Perhaps you’ll call Edith, too. I hated to go with only a word to them, but I didn’t have another second to spare.”

      “Of course we will,” said her mother lovingly. “Oh, Carol, I put your Bible in your bag. You’ll promise to read a few verses every day, won’t you, dear?” The mother’s pleading eyes were full of tears. Of course Carol promised, though somewhat impatiently.

      “All aboard,” shouted the brakeman, and Mrs. Berkley caught her daughter in one last quick embrace and then they were gone.

      The train moved out from the station and Carol realized that she was actually on her way.

      For a moment she had an impulse to jump up and run out to the platform and try to get off. How could she go off like this into unknown responsibilities and leave behind all the pleasant vacation that had been planned so long?

      Then, as the train moved more swiftly, she realized how childish she was, after all her brave words to her mother. She deliberately forced herself to go over everything to make sure she had not left anything undone. It was as if she must keep on with the breathless race she had been running for the last three hours or she would lose herself entirely.

      The parting with her family was naturally still uppermost in her mind. How disappointed they had been for her in the loss of her long-expected vacation. It was almost as if they had lost something themselves. But how foolish her mother had been about her going off alone! And then insisting on that silly promise to read her Bible every day! She would have to keep it of course, because she had been brought up with a conscience, but how annoying it was going to be always having to remember that! She would not have time to read the Bible! Why was mother like that?

      Suddenly she realized that she was weak with hunger, and putting aside her annoyance, she made her way to the dining car.

      Most of the tables in the diner were already filled, but Carol found a vacancy at the far end of the car beside a lady with two small children.

      Dining cars were not a common experience to Carol Berkley, and she scanned the menu interestedly, trying to appear quite used to traveling. After she had given her order, she sat watching the children. She tried to adjust herself to her new surroundings and to enjoy the experience while it was hers, but in spite of herself she felt disinterested, disappointed, almost ready to cry at the thought of what she was missing. In a little while now Edith and Jean would be taking the train together, laughing and talking, perhaps being cross meeting together at her absence. To think what she was missing!

      She went over item after item of office matters that she had attended to before she left, telephone calls that Mr. Fawcett had intended to make before he left for the West, telegrams he wanted sent, notes for enlightenment of whoever should take her place while she was gone, addresses that would be needed, a line or two about the policy that was being pursued in certain operations the firm was at work upon, things that no one but herself and her employer were familiar with. Yes, she had attended to them all and had given the papers into the hands of the next in authority to Mr. Fawcett. The letters she had finished and had mailed with her own hand as she took the elevator to leave. She need have no anxiety about responsibilities at home.

      She sighed a quick little quivering breath of disappointment as she remembered the pretty things she had prepared through the whole winter, which had been meant to shine at the seashore, and which were being carried into exile with herself and would, most of them, very likely not see the light of day or evening either until she reached home and hung them carefully in her closet for another winter. It would have been a great deal better if she could only have had time to repack and take some of her sensible old business clothes along. They would have been what she really needed. But it couldn’t be helped when she had to go in such a hurry. Probably she might have had the tickets exchanged for a later train if she had only thought of it, for of course there was no particular point in her being in Chicago on time for that meeting.

      She turned her attention to the landscape which was just deepening into twilight. A long crimson splash of glory against the horizon reached up through ripples of gold where the clear, delicate green-and-blue of the sky glimpsed between. It was a breathtaking sight to watch as the colors flamed and pulsated into one another, flecked from gold to orchid and darkened into deep purple like velvet with golden tears. She was almost sorry when her order came and she had to give her attention to eating. The next moment they swept into a village with streetlights flaring garishly along the way and blotting out the wonders of the sunset.

      Reluctantly she left the cheerful neighborliness of the diner and made her way back to her place in the sleeper. It seemed lonely back in the green-shrouded compartment where the porter had placed her when she entered the train.

      Yet she realized that she must not think of that for there was still her campaign at the Chicago station to plan. She must have some words ready for the Chicago manager, must drill her mind on certain points that needed to be brought out and certain others that were better not mentioned. There would be time enough later to plan for meeting the Duskin person. She felt that he was going to be rather an easy proposition. She remembered that she had always been able to use a keen sarcasm on occasion, and armed with this and with the letter that had been dictated by her employer in phrases dipped in vitriol, she felt that she would have little trouble in putting him in his place.

      This Chicago man, however, was quite another proposition. She knew him to be a nephew of Mr. Fawcett, a man of wealth and culture, young and therefore domineering, feeling privileged to dictate even to his uncle on occasion. It was going to be quite a trying interview. She realized that she must act the part of one much older and wiser than she knew herself to be if she would carry out Mr. Fawcett’s wishes and accomplish her mission, which was to pave the way for a further loan from several wealthy stockholders who lived in Chicago. It was going to be like stepping out upon thin ice, and she realized she must go steel shod yet glide with gossamer tread. If she pulled it off it was going to be the greatest thing she had ever done, just from the standpoint of her own soul, if nothing else. As she reflected upon the matter, she was filled with grave misgivings, and more and more she shrank from the ordeal before her.

      She slid over by the window, putting her elbow on the sill and resting her head wearily on her hand, her eyes staring out into the hurrying darkness that was stabbed with occasional lights.

      By and by a thread of a moon appeared over the dark rim of a mountain and glimmered down upon her with a startling appearance of personality, as if it were wondering what she was doing out here, hurrying West. With a tug of her heartstrings she thought of that same moon shining on far stretches of ocean, silvering great rocks and