Midnight Lace — Mackinlay Kantor

MACKINLAY KANTORPulitzer Prize-winning author of AndersonvilleShe 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.