She went a roundabout way, walking down F Street and stopping to make some trifling purchases in two or three shops.  She could not detect that she was being followed, but she went into a large department store, and spent considerable time in matching some half-dozen shades of ribbon.  On the way out she stepped into a telephone booth, and directed the dispatcher at the Chateau to send a taxi to Brentano’s for Mrs. Williams.  By the time she had leisurely crossed the street the taxi was there; getting in, she gave the order to drive to Union Station by way of Sixteenth Street and Massachusetts Avenue.  As she passed the Chateau, she saw Mrs. Clephane and Harleston coming out; a bit farther on they shot by in a spanking car.

She drew back to avoid recognition; but they were too much occupied with each other, she observed, even to notice the occupant of the humble but high-priced taxi.  At Scott Circle their car swung westward and disappeared down Massachusetts Avenue; she turned eastward, toward tomorrow’s rising sun, Union Station, and the rendezvous—­with hate in her heart for the woman who had displaced her, and a firm resolve to square accounts at the first opportunity.  Mrs. Clephane might be innocent, likely was innocent of any intention to come between Harleston and her, but that did not relieve Mrs. Clephane from punishment, nor herself from the chagrin of defeat and the sorrow of blasted hopes.  The balance was against her; and, be it man or woman, she always tried to balance up promptly and a little more—­when the balancing did not interfere with the business on which she was employed.  Madeline Spencer, for one of her sort, was exceptional in this:  she always kept faith with the hand that paid her.

At Union Station she dismissed the taxi and walked briskly to the huge waiting-room.  There she dropped the briskness, and went leisurely down its long length to the drug stand, where she bought a few stamps and then passed out through the middle aisle to the train shed, inquiring on the way of an attendant the time of the next express from Baltimore.  To his answer she didn’t attend, nevertheless she thanked him graciously, and seeing the passengers were beginning to crowd through the gates from an incoming train she turned toward them, as if she were expecting someone.  Which was true—­only it was not by train.

It had been five minutes past the hour, by the big clock in the station, when she crossed the waiting-room; by the time the crowd had passed the gates, and there was no excuse for remaining, another five had gone.  The appointment was for three exactly.  She had not been concerned to keep it to the minute, but the man should have been; as a woman, it was her prerogative to be careless as to such matters; moreover she had found it an advantage, as a rule, to be a trifle late, except with her superiors or those to whom either by position or expediency it was well to defer.  With such she was always on time—­and a trifle more.