Leslie copied the address from her father’s very private directory into a note book of her own. She replaced the little black book, closed and locked the safe and made business-like preparations to depart. She purposed to call at the address she had obtained that same afternoon. It was not yet four o’clock. She could reach Anton Lavigne at the Central Park West address in good season if she started promptly. If he were not at home she would leave a note of appointment with him for ten o’clock the next morning.
She let herself out of Peter the Great’s den by a curtained door at the back of the room. It also had a spring lock, its key was also in the financier’s possession. The stairway was in darkness but Leslie knew her way without switching on a light at the head of the stairs. Sure-footed, she quickly made the descent and went cautiously onto the veranda. Still no one in sight.
Leslie kept as close to the house as she could until she reached its front. There she crossed a strip of frozen lawn to the drive and hurriedly followed it to the gates. She could hardly believe as she got back into the car that she had spent over an hour in the show shop without having seen sign of a servant. The house was in perfect order. She was confident that Parsons was still caretaker. She had seen signs of the steward’s expert domestic management as soon as she stepped inside. She moodily wondered when she would see home again. She afterward brightened a little under the dogged determination to “make things come her way.”
When she reached the somewhat garish apartment hotel which housed Anton Lavigne she was of the opinion that her good fortune had held. She received the cheering information that Mr. Lavigne was in and was soon shaking hands with the dark-faced, suave, but keen-eyed foreigner. He came downstairs to the lounge to greet her and conduct her to the family apartment on the fifth floor. He inquired with the courtliness Leslie so well remembered in him for her father. He had not seen or heard from him in some time. He waited with admirable reserve for Leslie to state her errand.
“My father is away from New York at present,” Leslie began when he had ushered her into a small reception hall furnished in a manner which suggested its use as office as well. “I am through college now and starting a business career for myself.”
“Indeed,” Lavigne raised polite commendatory brows. “May I ask, how long you have been engaged in such an enterprise. You American girls are so amazing. The English girls, too, for that matter. In France every woman is a business woman, so we say, but American girls are the business adventurers. They plan business on a large scale, and really accomplish what they plan.”
“I hope I shall,” was Leslie’s fervent reply. “My father isn’t helping me at all. I don’t wish him to do so. I am using my own money, and he isn’t giving me a word of advice. All I claim from him is a free use of some of his most private successful methods. That is why I am here. I know you can be as useful to me as you have been to him.” She suddenly fixed her eyes on Lavigne with an expression startlingly like that of Peter Cairns, though she bore small physical resemblance to him.
“You speak with great confidence—with frankness.” Lavigne’s thick dark brows drew together. “I knew when you were announced that you wished something out of the usual. Only your father, Mr. Peter Cairns, and a few of my special friends have this address.” He gazed steadily at her as though waiting to hear a certain assurance from her which his foreign mind toward caution demanded.
“I have just come from the house on Riverside Drive. I took your address from its usual place. Do you get me?” Leslie spoke in the best imitation of her father she could muster.
“Ah, yes.” There was relief in the response. “I understand the situation, I believe. What can I do for you, Miss Cairns?” It had long been known to Lavigne that Peter Cairns’s greatest interest in life was his daughter. Such a calamity as an estrangement between the two would have seemed impossible to this man who had been one of the financier’s ablest allies for many years. He now believed that his best interests lay in serving Leslie.