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 petition 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 petition 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?"