Midnight Lace

MACKINLAY KANTOR

Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Andersonville


She had in abundance those charms which in one way or another—but mostly in one way—have attracted men since time began. The swathings of the early nineteen hundreds failed to smother the blooming beauty of her figure; the hats of that day magically complemented the pile of shining hair over her cameo face. In a word, she had chic, that blessed something with which women of any day manage to triumph over pre­vailing fashion. She had, too, a station in life pos­sessed of limitless fascination. She was a travel­ing milliner, which, if one was young and pretty and the year was 1911, suggested the ultimate in lurid possibilities. 


Her name was Dolly Hessian, she was an ex­cellent milliner, she had come—not completely unsoiled—from Chicago, and she knew exactly where she was going. When she arrived in Lex­ington, Iowa, to ply her trade, she shrewdly as­sessed the chances for more lasting connections. She dallied secretly, and platonically, with Sen­ator Newgate, whose unconquerable lust later led to one of the most dangerous and devastat­ing events of her life. But with Ben Steele, the town's most eligible bachelor, she did not dally. She set about building for him a career that would carry both of them to political and social heights. Then, with success in her grasp, the tides of fortune forced upon her a tremendous choice, a decision to be reached instantly, and against a roaring, flame-lit background. There she stood at that portentous moment, a woman who had never before faltered, now wholly at the mercy of her own heart.