“The young lady left no address. She was asked, but refused to give one.”
Max’s heart sank within him. She had been dismissed at an instant’s notice, and was lost to him. He turned upon Mr Cunnington in quick anger and said:
“So I am to understand that you refuse me all information concerning her?”
“I merely adhere to my rule, sir. Any dismissal of my assistants is a matter between myself and the person dismissed. I am not called upon to give details or reasons to outsiders. I regret that I am very busy, and must wish you good afternoon.”
Max Barclay bit his lip. He did not like the brisk, business-ike air of the man.
“I shall call upon Mr Statham, whom I happen to know,” he said. “And I shall invoke his aid.”
“You are perfectly at liberty to do just as you like, my dear sir. Even Mr Statham exercises no authority over the assistants in this establishment. It is my own department and I brook no interference.”
Max did not reply, but left the office and strode out into Oxford Street, pushing past the crowd of women around the huge shop-windows admiring the feminine finery there displayed so temptingly.
Marion—his Marion—had disappeared. She had been dismissed—in disgrace evidently; probably for some petty fault or for breaking one of the hundred rules by which every assistant was bound. He had always heard Mr Cunnington spoken of as a most lenient, and even generous, employer, yet his treatment of Marion had been anything but just or humane.
When he thought of it his blood boiled. Charlie was away, he knew. He had telephoned to his rooms that very morning, but his man had replied that his master had left hurriedly for the Continent—for Paris, he thought.