"So." Mr. Leyburn eyed her coldly. "Maybe Mr. Meakin, as you call him, will——"
"Mr. Meakin will tell you no more. In fact, if this is your business Mr. Meakin will not see you."
Monica pressed the bell under her foot.
The man laughed harshly.
"Well, it don't matter. Guess I'll come up with him sooner or later. Maybe he'll look into this office again another day." He rose, and his hard eyes shone with a metallic gleam. "If he does—you can just tell him that Tug is on his heels. He's looking for him bad. So he best get busy. Good-day."
The small boy threw open the door, and stood aside to allow the visitor to pass out. Nor, in spite of the curious threat in the man's words, could Monica help a smile at the impish manner in which the boy held his nose as the man passed by him.
The stranger's visit left an unsavory flavor behind him. Monica was disturbed, and sat thinking hard. She was striving hard to raise the curtain which shut out her view of the life lying behind all these people. She was striving to visualize something of that life with which poor Elsie had so long been associated. A number of vague pictures hovered before her mind's eye, but they were indistinct, unreal. She could not see with eyes of knowledge. How could she? Was not this life belonging to another world? A world she had never beheld, never been brought into contact with? No, it was useless to try to penetrate those dark secrets which she felt lay hidden behind the curtain she was powerless to draw aside.
Yet she knew these things had not come to her to be set aside and forgotten. They had come to her for a purpose. What was that purpose? She tried to see with her sister's eyes. What would Elsie have done, with Leo—threatened? Ah, that was it; that was the purpose. Her sister's responsibility had devolved upon her. Elsie would have taken some action to help—Leo. What would she have done?
She thought and puzzled for a long time. Then she pressed the bell under her desk once more. An inspiration had come.
When the boy appeared she demanded the proofs of the day's advertisements.