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.”