“I USED TO KNOW HIM”
Quite the contrary, Mrs. Gaylord did not share Leslie’s optimism. She
received Leslie’s characteristic letter with lively misgivings. She knew
she had no right to accept a handsome salary from Peter Cairns for
chaperoning his daughter without living up to the position to the
letter. Prodding conscience jarringly informed her that she had abused
and was now abusing the financier’s confidence in her. Should he
discover the fact he was more than likely to dismiss her and make it
hard for her to find another such position.
She had intended to return to Leslie at Hamilton directly after the
holidays, there to remain. She had been growing daily more and more
uneasy for fear Peter Cairns might have discovered her delinquency.
Continued silence on his part seemed an assurance that she had not been
under a surveillance ordered by him. She knew that he might resort to
such methods. He had engaged her privately to watch Leslie after Leslie
had engaged her as a chaperon. He was quite likely to keep in close
touch with her comings and goings.
She thought it very rash and inconsiderate in Leslie to go to New York
with “one of those reckless, hair-brained students” for company instead
of asking her to go. Mrs. Gaylord had no great fondness for girls. Of
the Hamilton students she had met only Lillian Walbert, Alida Burton and
Lola Elster; not a representative trio of Hamilton girls. She frowningly
wondered who Miss Monroe was. She had not been in Hamilton enough during
the fall and winter to meet Doris. She was now doubly vexed because she
was fond of New York. Much as she enjoyed visiting among her small town
friends she liked better the life and stir of the great eastern city.
She at once wrote Leslie an indignant letter expressing her displeasure
at Leslie’s new move and accusing her of taking an undue advantage of
her leniency. She was not sanguine that Leslie would receive the letter
before she started for New York. She supposed it would have small effect
upon her if she should receive it. She knew that Leslie would be furious
with her if she took it upon herself to go to New York and resume her
duties of chaperon when they were not welcome.
Mrs. Gaylord had met Leslie’s father, Peter Cairns, only once. He had
sent for her to come to his New York offices not long after Leslie had
engaged her as chaperon. She had walked through a maze of shining
mahogany furnished offices to one behind the rest, plain and almost bare
in its austerity. There she had talked with the great financier, a tall,
broad-shouldered, gray-eyed man with a stern mouth and a thatch of black
hair tossed off his forehead. He had said very little to her, but she
had understood precisely what he expected of her. She had left the
office feeling decidedly in awe of him. She discovered afterward that
was the only vivid recollection she had of him.
Mrs. Gaylord resignedly resolved to make the best of the annoying
situation and return to Leslie as soon as her lawless charge should
return to Hamilton. She could only hope Leslie would not stay in New
York beyond New Years. What a selfish girl Leslie was! She had not even
wished her a Merry Christmas. Suppose Leslie were to run across her
father in New York, and Mr. Cairns should inquire for her? Mrs. Gaylord
felt a kind of chill go up and down her spine each time that
particularly unpleasant supposition occurred to her mind. There was only
one grain of comfort. Leslie would not let him know the true
circumstances if she could help it. It would be to her own interest to
protect those of her chaperon.
The day after Christmas Mrs. Gaylord received a letter which threw her
into a panic of despair. It was a three-line letter from Peter Cairns,
in his own black, jagged handwriting, ordering her to join his daughter,
Leslie, in New York, immediately. He had also furnished her with
Leslie’s address at the Essenden, the exclusive apartment hotel at which
Leslie and Doris were registered as guests.
The uncompromising brevity of the letter was dismaying in itself. Not a
word more than was necessary to convey the order had been employed. It
contained neither address nor date. The envelope bore a New York
postmark. She assumed that it had been written in New York. She had the
office address of the financier. He had given it to her with the
injunction that any letter which she might feel called upon to write him
should be sealed and marked: “Personal, by order of Peter Cairns.” She
resolved to write him, explaining matters. She soon found she could
summon no satisfactory explanation of her absence from Leslie. The
financier had engaged her to watch over his daughter; not allow her to
do as she chose, regardless of convention.
Mrs. Gaylord arrived in New York and at the Essenden on the evening
after the receipt of Peter Cairns’ curt message. She was tired and cross
after her long journey and resentfully ready to tell Leslie a few plain
truths. Her one consoling thought was that Leslie had had the good
judgment to register for herself and companion at the Essenden. It was
at least above the criticism of even Peter Cairns.
Leslie had taken Doris to dine at the Luxe-Garins, a vast marble pile of
a hotel which New York boasted as its latest triumph in hostelry. The
two girls had sallied forth to dinner in a hotel taxicab much to
Leslie’s disapproval. “There are a dozen cars in our garage at the town
house, and we own enough others scattered about this burg,” she had said
with snappish resentment. “Just because my father—.” She had stopped
abruptly, recollecting in time that Doris knew nothing of her
estrangement from her father.
Doris, lovely in her crystal-beaded white frock, which was Parisian, had
attracted more attention at dinner than any other woman in the room. She
seemed in truth a dazzling fairy-tale princess with Leslie opposite her
as a wicked wizard. Leslie had chosen to wear a white velvet gown,
banded with black velvet and fur. It had a beaded, oddly-cut bodice and
was bizarre in effect. It lent her a dark, sinister appearance which
Doris’s white beauty made more noticeable.
The two girls had so much enjoyed the flattering notice their presence
in the luxurious restaurant had created they dawdled over their dinner
until it was too late to go to the theatre. Both would have liked to
join the dancers on the perfectly polished floor, but knew no one.
Leslie had an odd excess of family pride quite at variance with the rest
of her lawless nature. She could always be trusted never to form
acquaintances whose social standing she did not know. When they had
finished their demi-tasse she marched Doris from the restaurant like an
attendant dragon without so much as a glance at more than one plainly
admiring young man. Leslie cared nothing whatever about either sentiment
or young men. What she had enjoyed was the little stir Doris’s golden
beauty had created.
“Tomorrow, Goldie, we’ll go to luncheon at the Gilbraithe. It’s a wonder
of an eat shop. It’s the spiffiest tea room I know in New York.”
Leslie made the announcement as they stepped from the walk into the
waiting taxicab. She had engaged a car from the Essenden for the evening
and had planned a ride up Fifth Avenue by way of showing Doris a glimpse
of the great city after dark.
“We’ll never get clear of that string of hay carts,” she predicted,
motioning her head in the direction of the waiting line of automobiles.
At the corner above, where the line began, the starter was working
diligently to put the line in motion.
Doris merely glanced at her and again turned eager eyes to the street.
They sparkled with pleasure as she took in the beautiful main entrance
of the white marble hotel at her leisure.
“Ah, on the move at last.” Leslie gave a kind of satisfied growl as she
felt the taxicab begin to move. It started, then came to a quick jarring
stop. The starter shouted out a sharp order. It mingled with the
chugging purr of the engine and the voice of the taxi driver, raised to
an incensed yell at some progress-impeding object.
With her usual impatience Leslie jerked open the nearest door of the
machine. She was too much of a motorist not to investigate. Her driver’s
start had been blocked by a car which had been parked in front of it.
The driver of the other car had boldly attempted to get under way first.
She bent forward and leaned far out of the open doorway to see what was
going on. The starter and her driver had united in abusing “that fresh
boob.” She grinned sardonically as her driver flung a last word or two
at the disappearing car. With a sharp, surprised “What?” she suddenly
dodged back and into the sheltering darkness of the tonneau.
From the ornamental main entrance of the Luxe-Garins she had spied a man
emerging. He stood before the great entrance doors briskly turning up
the collar of his brown fur motor coat and pulling a brown fur cap down
over his head as though preparing for a high-speed spin. He was a tall
man, broad-shouldered, with gray eyes and a stern mouth.
From the dim cavern of the tonneau Leslie peered out at him with a
curious, reverend timidity. She was careful to keep the ermine collar of
her evening wrap well up about her face. So her father was in New York
instead of Europe. Leslie watched him, her dark features lighting to
wistful admiration. How she wished she dared open the door of the car
and call out to him! No; that could not be. There was only one way to
bring back his love for her. That way was to work and win it. She drew
an audible sighing breath.
“What is the matter, Leslie?” Doris had heard her companion’s surprised
exclamation. Now she heard the sigh.
“Oh, nothing,” Leslie affected carelessness of tone. Her gaze was still
on her father. She kept hungry eyes riveted on him as he left the hotel
entrance, swung down the broad stone walk and out of her sight. “Did you
notice a man standing in front of the hotel with a brown fur coat and
cap?” She forced a casual question.
“No; I didn’t. I didn’t notice anyone. I was thinking about whether I
liked New York better than London. Of course I could never like it as
well as Paris. It is a wonderful city though,” Doris said honestly. “I
wish we knew some interesting men here like the explorers my father
knows. He and I often have had luncheon and dinner with Jacques Fandor,
the great French explorer. Do you know the man you asked me about,
Leslie?” she added with intent to be polite.
Leslie did not reply at once. She hesitated for a moment then said in an
odd, repressed tone: “I think I used to know him.”
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