but when they did they usually liked them a bit on the unkempt, disorganized side.

You just had to keep the disorganization from getting out of control. If you allowed it to spread to the romance department you were sunk. But that couldn't happen with Janice—not when he took her in his arms and told her how beautiful she was.

As he strode toward the door a tiny muscle in his jaw started twitching. Something was seriously wrong. He was sure of it. Self-containment was Janice's specialty. Her self-control was phenomenal and no matter how eager she might be to see him it just wasn't in character for her to try to break the door down.

Something extraordinary must have come up to make her act that way. It was hard to imagine what it could be, to bring about such a change in the way she ordinarily behaved. Fright? Hysteria? But Janice didn't have a baker's pinch of hysteria in her make-up. His alarm increased as he reached the door, and started fumbling with the chain. His fingers were all thumbs and the knocking was so loud and continuous now that it further unnerved him, so that it took him nearly a minute to get the door open.

She came in with a sobbing gasp, her hair disheveled, her eyes so wide with fright it gave her a staring, almost China-doll aspect. She was startlingly pale and hadn't bothered to cover up her pallor with lipstick and rouge.

For an instant the machinery of Loring's mind was barely able to function. It moved slowly, as if ice-clogged, with one dread thought uppermost. Village streets were likely to be deserted in the early hours of the morning and a scream could be quickly smothered. Had she been fleeing from someone who wouldn't have let her failure to use lipstick discourage him? A brutish someone who cared only that she was a woman?

She was trembling violently and her voice was so agitated that he had to strain to catch the words which tumbled from her lips as she clung to him, her eyes still China-doll wide, her fingers tightening on his wrists.

"Darling, darling, hold me tight. Just keep your arms around me for a moment, and I'll be able to tell you what happened. Right now I can't seem to think straight."

Loring stood for a moment without moving, holding her close, his temples throbbing. "What is it?" he urged, trying to keep his voice calm but not succeeding very well. "Tell me. I've got to know."

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