Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/168

 turned about, shaking out her skirt and massaging her trim waist-line with outspread thumb and forefinger. "These dinner gowns ain't none too heavy in the upper-works, are they?" she asked, as she pinned a bunch of violets to her corsage. She looked wistfully up at Wilsnach. There were times when he seemed to touch her spirit with a vague and undefined sense of disappointment.

"How'd I look?" she courageously demanded.

"You look fine, Sadie," acknowledged Wilsnach. "But Kestner seems disappointed that Keudell got away from us."

Sadie sighed.

"And I guess Dorgan ought 'o get a medal as a quarter-miler," she indifferently announced. For Service work loomed small beside the thought of her first Collet creation and a three-hour dinner with Wilsnach. But a small cloud showed itself in the sky of Sadie's hopes.

"I wish we was eatin' alone," she said as she reached for her cloak.

"Were eating!" corrected the other.

"Were eating," dutifully repeated the girl.

"But it's Andelman of the Intelligence Department that we're going to dine with. And I imagine