“Make yourself beautiful!”
“Beautiful!... How?” Allie had an inkling of what it meant, but all her mind repudiated the horrible suggestion.
Durade laughed. He had indeed changed. He seemed a weaker man. Benton was acting powerfully upon him.
“How little vanity you have!... Allie, you are beautiful now or at any time. You’ll be so when you’re old or dead.... I mean for you to show more of your beauty.... Let down your hair. Braid it a little. Put on a white waist. Open it at the neck.... You remember how your mother did.”
Allie stared at him, slowly paling. She could not speak. It had come—the crisis that she had dreaded.
“You look like a ghost!” Durade exclaimed. “Like she did, years ago when I told her—this same thing—the first time!”
“You mean to use me—as you used her?” faltered Allie.
“Yes. But you needn’t be afraid or sick. I’ll always be with you.”
“What am I to do?”
“Be ready in the afternoon when I call you.”