"That's it. Skin is no treat to New York, and nobody will look at you twice." Miss Lindsey had a struggle to keep her voice and manner unconcerned enough, as she surveyed her finished product and saw that from under her hands would go forth a sensation. In the old ivory satin with its woven rosebuds and cream rose-point, above which rose pearly shoulders and a neck bearing a small, proud head, with close waves of heavy black hair, Miss Adair was like a dainty, luscious, tropical fruit that is more beautiful than its own flower. "How an old maid in a country town made that dress I don't see!" Miss Lindsey added reflectively. "It was you, who unmade it," answered Miss Adair with gratitude. "I wish you were going, too," she added as she nestled to the taller girl for a perfumed second. "I'm going to luncheon with you and Mr. Farraday to-morrow," answered Miss Lindsey, with a pleased laugh at Miss Adair's sudden clinging that indicated her sincerity in not wishing to leave her alone. "Oh, lovely! And Mr. Height will be with us too, for I promised to have luncheon with him again," she exclaimed, as Miss Lindsey began to insert her into an evening wrap made of a priceless old Paisley shawl which "Fashions" had also tempted Miss Elvira to desecrate with her scissors. "Gerald Height?" asked Miss Lindsey, and her eyes first snapped and then smouldered. "Where did he get in on--where did you meet him? Does Mr. Vandeford know about it and--" "I met him in Mr. Vandeford's office. He's in 'The Purple Slipper,' and I went to luncheon with him to-day. I meant to tell you about it, and meeting Mr. David, but Mr. Vandeford told me to get a nap and I thought I--" Here the speaking-trumpet in the hall informed Miss Lindsey that Mr. Vandeford was waiting for Miss Adair below, and she had to let her treasure depart from her. "I wonder just how straight Godfrey Vandeford is," she mused, as she picked up the discarded tucker of coarse netting. "The poor kid! I wish she was at home hidden behind Miss Elvira's skirts. Hawtry and a girl like that! Damn men!" CHAPTER V It may be that in the long life of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford he had passed a more perturbed evening than that on which he led his protege, the author of "The Purple Slipper," to her debut under the white lights of Broadway, but he could not recall the occasion. His grilling had begun while he waited for his charge to descend in the lobby of the Y. W. C. A. and it ended-- "We are delighted to have Miss Adair stay with us while her play is being rehearsed," a very pleasant young woman, with a trim figure, kind and wise eyes, and gray-sprinkled hair, remarked to him after she had whistled the fact of his arrival above. "When such men as you, Mr. Vandeford, begin to put on clean historical plays, many of our anxieties will be over. I look on each musical show that appears on Broadway as a personal enemy."