“Why!” she exclaimed. “What makes you such a night-owl? I’m going to turn on the light.”
Fortunately I spoke before she found the electric button. She was shocked on learning what was the matter, and how it had all happened, and even more shocked when I told her that I had moved in the previous Saturday afternoon and left a note for her with the clerk. She had returned from her vacation Saturday forenoon, had been in the Jane Leonard all Saturday afternoon, all Sunday except for the time spent lunching with a friend a few blocks away. She had returned from her office a few minutes before six that afternoon, got her mail and room-key at the office on her way to her room. Returned, handed in her key at the office, had her dinner, and then gone out for a walk. It was after this walk, when she stopped at the office for the key of her room, that my note was given her by the night-clerk.
The only information vouchsafed to Miss Stafford and me by the woman to whom I had given the note was:
“It was misplaced. I put it in 507 as soon as it turned up.” And the tone in which that statement was made was not in the slightest apologetic. Indeed it was impatient to the point of rudeness.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Miss Stafford told me. “Mrs. Scrimser, that’s the room-clerk’s name, is a special friend of Miss Diggs. Miss Diggs? She belongs to an old New York family, they say. She’s always very nice to me. She always speaks to me.”
“Why!” I exclaimed. “Doesn’t she speak to every guest who has been here long enough for her to know them?”
Miss Stafford shook her head.
“That’s the reason we consider it worth mentioning when she does. You’ll have to wait and see for yourself. It’s a condition that can’t exactly be explained.”
A very wise reply I found that to be before I left the Jane Leonard—a condition that cannot exactly be explained. At least it could not be explained with credit to the persons controlling the house, nor to the woman whom they employed to manage it.
Because of that attack of erysipelas I was confined to my room for nearly a week. When I felt strong enough to go out, it was only in the evening to the roof-garden, or for a walk along the river’s edge. Even then I was compelled to wear a broad-brimmed hat and colored glasses to shield my eyes. When at last my eyes became strong enough for me to lay aside the glasses, it was a couple of weeks before I dared to read or do anything besides coarse knitting—sweaters for our soldiers.