This was their parting. Lexy was thankful that it had been like this, very glad that she could leave the house in good will and kindliness. It strengthened her beyond measure. She wanted to help Caroline, and she wanted to help Mrs. Enderby, too.
“And I will!” she thought. “I know that I’m right and she’s wrong! She’s rather terrible, too. Sometimes I think she’d almost rather not find out the truth, if it was going to make what she calls a scandal. She will have it that Caroline’s gone away of her own free will, to get married; and if it’s anything else, she doesn’t want to know. She is hard, but there’s something rather fine about her.”
There was no one in the hall when Lexy left, and this was a relief, for she supposed that Mrs. Enderby had told the servants, or would tell them, that Miss Moran had been discharged.
She went out and closed the door behind her. A fine, thin rain was falling—nothing to daunt a healthy young creature like Lexy; yet she wished that the sun had been shining. She wished that she hadn’t had to leave the house in the rain, under a gray sky. Somehow it made her only too well aware that she was homeless now, and alone.
As was her habit when depressed, she set off to walk briskly; and by the time she reached the Grand Central her cheeks were glowing and her heart considerably less heavy. She learned that she had nearly three hours to wait for the next train to Wyngate; so she bought her ticket, checked her bag, and went out again.
In a near-by department store she bought a little chamois pocket. Then she went to the bank, cashed both her checks, and, putting the bills into her pocket, hung it around her neck inside her blouse. It was very comfortable to have so much money.
Then, only as a forlorn hope, she rang up the offices of J. J. Eames & Son, on State Street.
“I don’t suppose they keep track of their passengers,” she thought; “but it can’t do any harm.”
So, when she got the connection, she asked politely:
“Could you possibly tell me where Mr. Charles Houseman has gone?”