Mrs. Enderby paused outside her child’s door.
“The light is out,” she said. “She will be asleep. I shall not disturb her. Good night, Miss Moran!”
“Good night, Mrs. Enderby!” Lexy answered, and went into her own room.
She gave Mrs. Enderby twenty minutes to get safely stowed away; then she went out quietly into the hall, to Caroline’s room. She knocked softly; there was no answer. She turned the handle and went in; the room was dark and very still. She switched on the light.
It was as she had expected—the room was empty. Caroline was not there.
II
Lexy’s first impulse was to close the door of that empty room, and to hold her tongue. It seemed to her that it would be treachery to Caroline to tell Mrs. Enderby. She and Caroline were both young, both of the same generation; they ought to stand loyally together against the tyrannical older people.
“Because, golly, what a row there’d be if Mrs. Enderby ever knew she’d gone out!” Lexy thought.
That was how she saw it, at first. Caroline had pretended to have a headache so that she would be left behind, and would get a chance to slip out alone. It was simply a lark. Lexy had known such things to happen often before, at boarding school; and the unthinkable and impossible thing was for one girl to tell on another.
“She’ll be back soon,” thought Lexy, “and she’ll tell me all about it.”