When the woman had calmed herself somewhat, she told a more or less coherent story. She had foolishly tried to surprise Sylvia—had pictured her daughter’s delight, when she should walk in, unannounced, on the heels of the letter that deferred her coming until Tuesday. She went to the apartment in a cab and rang the bell. There was no one at home. She returned to the station and wrote the letter to David—she would not have told him for the world that she was greeted by locked doors.
“Why didn’t you go right to the janitor, my dear?” David asked, tenderly. “You know Oliver and Sylvia often go out on the lake, Sundays, when it’s hot. And—it just occurs to me—are you sure you went to the right place?”
Judith, watching the unfoldment of the story from a vantage point that was not David’s, thought the woman clutched eagerly at a plank she had hitherto not seen. She gained a precious interval of thought, while her lips retorted:
“I should think I ought to know Sylvia’s address.”
“Yes, but those great apartment houses all look alike. You might not even have been on the right street. You know, once when you went to St. Louis—”
“Yes, but that time I took the wrong car line. It was the fault of the policeman who directed me. I’d think a cabman would know the streets.”
“What did Sylvia say—when you finally—”
“What did she say? She didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t let me in. I tried to telephone her from the hotel, Monday morning—and I’m morally certain it was Oliver who answered the ’phone. When I said it was mother, he said I had the wrong number, and hung up. I tried again, and they wouldn’t answer.”
“But when you went back to the house—”
“I went three times—and once I know I saw Sylvia peeping through the curtain at the apartment door. She didn’t want me there, and she wouldn’t let me in.”