CHAPTER XV.

“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.”