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In the end, I took the second choice, and she sent down the matching earrings. At precisely seventhirty, Thatcher came by.

He wore a stylish tuxedo and looked positively debonair. He paused in the doorway and gazed in at me. He was silent so long I thought he was trying to decide how to get out of taking me. Maybe he thought I looked too plain to be at a party with these wealthy Palm Beach women.

"Well?" I finally said.

"My God. Willow, you're absolutely beautiful."

He said it with such depth of sincerity and appreciation it took my breath away. For a moment. I couldn't speak. and I felt as light as air. I glanced at the floor to see if my feet had left it and if I was floating.

"It's your mother's pearls," I said, and he laughed.

"Hardly. This is one of those occasions when the woman bedecks the jewels and not vice versa."

"Thatcher Eaton, where do you come up with these great lines?" I teased.

He stopped smiling. "From my heart. Willow, from my heart," he said.

The teasing grin flew off my face, and he kissed me softly.

"Come on, let's blaze a trail through Palm Beach society," he urged.

How could I not feel on top of the world here? I was with a very handsome, very successful man. I was wearing expensive jewelry. We were getting into a Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible and going to a yacht party on a wonderful warm night in Palm Beach. I was doing all this. me. Willow De Beers; not a pauper but, until a few days ago, just another college student expecting to attend the weekend beer bash at Allan's fraternity. I truly felt like a princess.

"I'm a little nervous about this, Thatcher. I've never been to a yacht party," I admitted.

"A party is a party. There's just more of everything here: more servants, perhaps, and more glitz. The Germans drink beer at their parties. The French drink wine at theirs. People in Palm Beach drink champagne, that's all. A student of human behavior such as you should understand that." he added with a wink.

He could make all this seem as common and ordinary as he wanted. I thought, but the moment we drove up to the dock and heard the music and saw the lights, the women glittering like diamond statues, the parade of servants with silver frays, and the recognizable celebrity faces here and there, I threw his attitude out the window. My legs actually trembled as we walked up the gangplank to the deck, where a very pretty hostess stood ready to greet us and all the other arriving guests. She handed us glasses of champagne.

"Good evening, Welcome," she said, and we stepped onto the deck.

A six-piece combo was playing. I saw tables of roasts, lobster, platters of shrimp, freshly roasted turkeys. Cornish hens, pheasant under glass, almost anything anyone could think to have at a party, with bowls and bowls of salads, a fresh vegetable bar that looked as if it had been lifted from a farmer's market and brought here, and a table just for breads and rolls.

/> "Let's find Hope Farris and then get something to eat," Thatcher said. "I'm starving."

We were practically elbow to elbow with people. The yacht was the biggest I had ever seen, but, according to Thatcher, apparently everyone Hope invited had decided to attend.

"She's probably disappointed." "Disappointed? Why?"

"Everyone overbooks his or her parties. The worst thing is to throw a party and not have it well attended. It could take you down ten points on the Alist meter. My parents invited two hundred for the weekend."

Two hundred! Your mother told me a hundred, a hundred and twenty-five," I said.

"That's what she expects on such short notice, but you never know."

We paused, and he smiled at someone, waved to another.

'Good mix. I see dozens of trust-fund babies, some nouveau riche like Thomas Carter over there, owner of UX.com, and a number of the old ruling class. That's Mildred Callwell, one of the grande dames of Palm Beach society-- her husband owns Perk-Up Coffee, And that elderly lady in the wheelchair back there wearing the diamond tiara and clinging to the butterfly Judith Leiber purse like it contains her emergency heart medicine is Countess Von De Myer. She does have a legitimate title and actually lives in a castle in Belgium,

"You see those two men." he said, nodding at two very elegant-looking gentlemen, identically slim, with identically tan, almost identical black mustaches and styled hair. They were standing back, smoking long, thin cigarillos, and smiling slyly at the beautiful young women who walked by them.

"Yes."

"They're what are known as walkers. They haven't got anything, even though they look rich and successful. In return for free meals and entertainment, they escort wealthy women to events like this. Some pretend to hold titles like duke or baron this or that, but everyone knows they are full of what makes the grass grow greener."

"If everyone knows they're phony, why would any well-to-do woman want to be seen with them?"

"You need to have someone on your arm, and it's nice to have someone who makes a good appearance. The party givers want there to be more men to ask the unescorted women to dance, make conversation, that sort of thing. It's like those men who are hired by cruises to dance with women.