Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/228

 kissed Gordon good-by, with Peter's entire approbation. "Dear Gordon," she murmured with a rather tearful smile. Halfway down the gangway he turned to wave them a final adieu. Peter shouted an absurd message of some sort. Leona only waved to him, but the look in her eyes stayed with him all the rest of the day.

"I wonder if she lied," he said to himself once.

The leave-taking left him depressed for several days, and he hailed his Western trip with genuine relief. He went alone, save for the presence of his secretary and a valet, and was gone just over a fortnight. In that time he covered every mile of C. and W. track and talked with hundreds of subordinates from division superintendents to track walkers. He ended his trip at Chicago, reaching there at dusk of a warm Indian summer day. Tired out but thoroughly satisfied with the results of his fortnight's labors, he left his car with a sense of relief and was driven to a hotel on the lake front. His rooms were already reserved, and, leaving the task of registering to his secretary, Gordon turned at once to the elevator, hoping that, by avoiding the desk, he might escape running into acquaintances. That was not to be,