She arrived at last before the skyscraper, two floors of which housed the executive and clerical forces necessary to Peter Cairns’s several speculative interests. Leslie ordered the driver of the taxicab to wait and made a bold entrance into the building. She could hear her heart begin to thump against her side as she dodged into the cage of a waiting elevator and dodged out again at the third floor. Presently she had walked a little way down a wide corridor and opened a door which in the past she had opened many times.
It led to an outer office, given over to the keeping of a solitary office boy. When she inquired for Mr. Carrington, one of her father’s important managers, and gave the youngster her name, he stared at her with blue startled eyes and made a zealous dash for a door leading to an inner office.
“How are you, Mr. Carrington?” she drawled to a clean-cut pleasant man of perhaps forty, who had instantly emerged from the office to greet her and now ushered her into his private business domain.
“Very well, Miss Cairns; thank you. And you? It has been a long time since you visited these offices.”
“Yes;” Leslie smiled affably. She was speculating how long it might take to “pump Carrington, and beat it.” “I was at college for several winters, you know, and away from New York summers. I’m not at the Riverside Drive house much. It doesn’t pay to keep it open. My father is there so seldom for any length of time.”
“So he tells me. He doesn’t stay even in New York for any length of time, for that matter,” laughed the manager. “It isn’t an easy proposition, getting hold of him when I need him.”
“I should imagine not.” Leslie smiled in apparent sympathy. “Even I lose track of him for days at a time. I am at the Essenden, at present with my chaperon, Mrs. Gaylord. I came down town this morning to see if you would help me with a little steamer surprise I am planning to give my father. That is, if he goes to England soon. I thought you would let me know the day and hour he’d plan to sail. Then I wouldn’t need to ask him a single question, beforehand. He is likely to start for England in a hurry without coming to the hotel to say good-bye. Then where would my surprise be?” Leslie put just the right amount of dejection into the question.
“Oh, he has changed his mind about the trip to England, Miss Cairns. He doesn’t intend to go across the pond until he comes back from the coast. That will be two weeks at least. I will let you know, nearer the date of sailing,” was the pleasant promise.
“The western trip? Oh, yes.” Leslie nodded wisely. “I have no surprise ready for him for that. There’d hardly be time for one, would there?” she asked innocently.
“Hardly.” The manager consulted his watch as though amused at his own reply. “His car was to pull out from the B. R. P. at noon today. It’s almost noon now.”