Part 22 (1/2)

”I didn't mean to be such a jay, Rod. It's all right if you say so. I guess I was crazy. If you just give me your word that you haven't intentions towards her, why, it'll be all right.”

Roderick gave the a.s.surance with all his heart, and Fred insisted upon shaking hands over it, and they parted on the best of terms.

But Roderick felt covered with shame when he found himself alone on the Pine Road. He could not deny to his heart that Fred's suspicions had some little reason in them, and the knowledge filled him with dismay.

He was humiliated by the thought that he had accepted many favours from Leslie's father and been a welcome guest many, many times at her home, and he wondered miserably if Helen Murray held the same opinion as Fred.

He came back to his office the next morning determined to avoid Leslie Graham, no matter what the consequence.

She called him on the telephone, wrote dainty notes, and strolled past the office at the time when he was likely to be leaving, all to no avail. Roderick was buried in work, and slowly but surely the knowledge began to dawn upon the girl that she, with all her attractions, was being gently but firmly put aside.

And so the winter sped away on the swift wheels of busy days, and when spring came the local option pet.i.tion began to circulate. And once more Roderick escaped the necessity of declaring himself.

The firm of Elliot and Kent, with whom he had worked in the North, wished to consult him, and he was summoned to Montreal for a week.

Lawyer Ed saw him off at the station fairly puffed up with pride over his boy's importance.

When Roderick returned, the pet.i.tion was signed, and sent away, and Lawyer Ed was jubilating over the fact that they could have got far more names if they had wanted them. And Roderick comforted himself with the thought that his was not needed after all.

The excitement subsided for a time after this, the real hard preparation for voting day would not commence until the autumn, so J.

P. Thornton was seized with the grand idea that the coming summer was surely the heaven-decreed occasion upon which to go off on that long-deferred holiday. The inspiration came to him one day when he had telephoned Lawyer Ed twice and called at his office three times to find him out each time.

”Is this the office of Brians and McRae or only McRae?” he asked when Roderick informed him for the third time that his chief was absent.

”Well, it isn't often like this,” said the junior partner apologetically. ”We'll get back to our old routine when my chief gets over his local option excitement.”

”If you can run this business alone during a Local Option to-do, I see no reason why you couldn't while we take three months holidays, do you?”

”No, I do not,” said Roderick heartily. ”Can't you make Lawyer Ed go to the Holy Land this spring? I'll do anything to help him go. He needs a rest.”

J. P. Thornton looked at the young man smiling reminiscently. He was recalling the night when two young men gave up that very trip and Lawyer Ed had laughingly declared he would go some day even if he had to wait till little Roderick grew up. ”And little the boy knows,” said Mr. Thornton to himself, ”just how much Ed gave up that time.”

”Well,” he said aloud, ”this is surely poetic justice.”

”What is?” asked Roderick puzzled. But J. P. would not explain.

”We'll just make him go,” he declared. ”You stand behind me, Rod, and don't let him get back to work, and I'll get him off.”

It was not entirely the old boyish desire to go on the long-looked-for trip with his friend that was at the bottom of Mr. Thornton's anxiety to get away. He could not help seeing that Ed needed a rest and needed it very badly. Archie Blair aroused his fears further. For one evening Lawyer Ed did an altogether unprecedented thing and went home to bed early. Mrs. Hepburn, his sister, was so amazed over such a piece of conduct on her brother's part, that she called at the doctor's office the next day to ask if he thought there was anything wrong with Ed's heart.

Doctor Blair laughed long and loud over the question, putting the lady's fears at rest.

”No, I don't think any one in Algonquin would admit there was anything astray with Ed's heart, Mary,” he said. ”But his head might be vastly improved by putting a little common sense into it regarding eating and sleeping. He's been going too hard for about twenty-five years and he's tired, that's all. But J. P.'s going to get him off this time, all right, and the change is just what he needs.”

He spoke to J. P. about it, and the two determined that they would make all preparations to start for the Holy Land in July and if Ed had to be bound and gagged until the steamer sailed, they would certainly see that he went.

Lawyer Ed consented with the greatest enthusiasm. Of course he would go. He really believed he had enough money saved up, and Roderick was doing everything, anyway, and he could just start off for a forty years wandering in the wilderness if J. P. would go with him.

The whole town became quite excited when Mrs. Hepburn announced at a tea given by Mrs. Captain Willoughby that her brother and J. P.

Thornton were really and truly, even should Algonquin go up in flames the day before, going to sail from Montreal sometime in July for foreign parts. There was a great deal of running to and from the Thornton and Brians homes, and a tremendous amount of talking and advising. And the only topic of conversation for weeks, in the town, was the Holy Land, and the question which greeted a new-comer invariably was, ”Did you hear that Lawyer Ed and J. P. have really decided to go?”

All this bustle of preparation and expectation did not deceive J. P.