The Emilie Loring Collection

In all of the talk about Emilie Loring’s life, I don’t want to lose sight of what endeared her to millions of readers—her books. Come, sit with me in a comfy chair by the window, a cup of tea or coffee or whatever you please next to you on a side table–and maybe a chocolate chip cookie, hot from the oven–and let’s start It’s a Great World!

The French window in the library shook from the impact of a frenzied fist. A white face pressed against the glass. Snack, the German shepherd dog, growled and bristled. Jefferson Kilburn dropped the automatic he held into a drawer of the flat desk. What had sent Eve to him in such a fever of impatience, he wondered, as he hurriedly unlatched the window.

A slim girl in a stiff damask-like satin frock of pale yellow brushed past him, a girl with dark hair curling from under a new-leaf green hat. The Boston terrier at her heels sniffed disdainfully at the shepherd and became absorbed in a study of the ceiling. There was terror in her eyes, her heart-shaped face was colorless save for the red of her lovely mouth. The room vibrated from her excitement. She flung the bridesmaid bouquet of mimosa to a chair and caught Kilburn’s arm in both hands.

“Jeff! Jeff! You wouldn’t—“ Her voice broke in a strangled sob.

He flung an arm about her shoulders, kicked the long window shut and drew her toward a chair by the fire.

“Sit down, Eve, you’re shaking. Get your breath and then tell me what has happened.”

“I-I can’t sit down, Jeff. I can’t get my breath, until I’m sure—“ she pressed her face against the gardenia in his coat lapel and shivered. “Until I’m sure you’re here.”

“Here! Where the dickens would I be? What’s the matter? Look at me.”

He raised her chin and held it until her tear-drenched eyes met his puzzled dark ones.

“Has all this wedding ballyhoo got on your nerves? Eve Travis, the most popular, the most stony-hearted of her set, with nerves! That, folks, is news.”

Eve is about to marry Jeff, certain that she’s saving him from heartache, and he’s going to let her, because he knows what she does not—that her fortune is lost. With Moya out of his life, what does it matter, who he marries? At least he can protect Eve, whom he regards as a little sister. But both are competent, self-reliant adults, and hurt pride is about to set them at cross purposes just when they need to pull together to solve a dangerous, international conspiracy in the nation’s Capitol.

Better grab another cookie…