"Back at home."
"How is he getting on?"
"Pretty well, I believe. He's a big rascal."
"Yes, but a pleasant one, and an open one."
Peck suddenly rose, "Well, I must be going. I have an engagement which I must keep." At the door he paused. "By the way, Mrs. Peck begged to be remembered to you."
He had a way of blinking, like a terrapin—slowly. He did so now.
He did not mean his tone to be insolent—only to be insolent himself—but it was.
"I'm very much obliged to her. Remember me to her."
That afternoon I strolled out, hoping to get a glimpse of Miss Leigh. I did so, but Peck was riding in a carriage with her and her father. So he won the last trick, after all. But the rubber was not over. I was glad that they did not see me, and I returned to my office filled with rage and determined to unmask Peck the first chance I should have, not because he was a trickster and a liar, but because he was applying his trickiness in the direction of Miss Leigh.
That night the weather changed and it turned off cold. I remember it from a small circumstance. The wind appeared to me to have shifted when Miss Leigh's carriage drove out of sight with Peck in it. I went home and had bad dreams. What was Peck doing with the Leighs? Could I have been mistaken in thinking he and McSheen had been talking of Mr. Leigh in their conference? For some time there had been trouble on the street-car lines of the city and a number of small strikes had taken place on a system of lines running across the city and to some extent in competition with the West Line, which Mr. Leigh had an interest in. According to the press the West Line, which ran out into a new section, was growing steadily while the other line was falling back. Could it be that McSheen was endeavoring to secure possession of the West Line? This, too, had been intimated, and Canter, one of the richest men of the town, was said to be behind him. What should I do under the circumstances? Would Peck tell Miss Leigh any lies about me? All these suggestions pestered me and, with the loss of Dix, kept me awake, so that next morning I was in rather a bad humor.