John Dene Of Toronto Part 29

"Would she?" he enquired simply, as he crumbled his cake and threw it to a flurry of birds that was hopefully fluttering on the fringe of the tables.

"A son's success means more to a mother than anything else," said Mrs.

West.

"I seem to have been hustling around most of my time," said John Dene.

"I'm always working when I'm not asleep. Perhaps I haven't felt it as much----"

He left the sentence uncompleted; but there was a look in his eyes that was not usually there.

Mrs. West sighed with all a mother's sympathy for a lonely man.

"Do you like birds, Mr. Dene?" asked Dorothy.

"Why, sure," he replied, "I like all animals. That's what I don't understand about you over here," he continued.

"But we love animals," said Mrs. West.

"I mean stag and fox-hunting." There was a hard note in his voice.

"If I had a place in this country and anyone came around hunting foxes on my land, there'd be enough trouble to keep the whole place from going to sleep for the next month."

"What should you do?" enquired Dorothy wickedly.

"Well, if anything had to be killed that day it wouldn't be the fox."

"I'm afraid you wouldn't be very popular with your neighbours," said Dorothy.

"I don't care a pea-nut whether I'm popular or not," he said grimly; "but they'd have to sort of learn that if they wanted to run foxes, they must go somewhere else than on my land."

Dorothy decided that the English county that opened its gates to John Dene would have an unexpectedly exciting time. Mentally she pictured him, a revolver in each hand, holding up a whole fox-hunt, the sudden reining in of horses, the shouting of the huntsman and the master, whilst the dogs streamed across the country after their quarry.

Perhaps it was as well, she decided, that John Dene had no intention of settling in England.

"This has been fine," said John Dene after a long silence, during which the three seemed content to enjoy the beauty of the afternoon. "I wonder if you----" Then he paused, as he looked across at Mrs. West.

"You wonder if I would what, Mr. Dene?" she asked with a smile.

"I was just going to invite you to dine with me," continued John Dene, "only I remembered that your daughter probably has enough of me----"

"If you word all your invitations like that," said Dorothy, "we shall accept every one, shan't we, mother?"

Mrs. West smiled.

"Say, that's bully," he cried. "We'll get a taxi and drive back. I'd hate to spoil a good day by dining alone;" and he called for his bill.

"That's the third time I've seen that little man this afternoon," said Dorothy, lowering her voice as a man in a blue suit and light boots paused a few yards in front of them to read the label on a tree.

"Isn't it funny how one runs across the same person time after time?"

"Sure," said John Dene. There was in his voice a note of grimness that neither Dorothy nor Mrs. West seemed to detect.

At the main gates they secured a taxi. As they hummed eastward, Dorothy noticed that the heavy preoccupied look, so characteristic of John Dene's face had lifted. He smiled more frequently and looked about him, not with that almost fierce penetrating glance to which she had been accustomed; but with a look of genuine interest.

"If it wouldn't bother you any," said John Dene, suddenly leaning across to Mrs. West, "I'd like to get an automobile, and perhaps you'd show me one or two places I ought to see. I'd be glad if----" He looked at her and smiled.

"It's very kind of you----" began Mrs. West.

"Of course I don't want to b.u.t.t-in," he said a little hastily.

"Am I included in the invitation?" asked Dorothy quietly.

"Sure," he replied, looking at her a little surprised. Then, seeing the twitching at the corners of her mouth, he smiled.

"Then that's fixed up," he said. "I'll have an automobile for next Sat.u.r.day, and you shall arrange where we're to go."

"But you mustn't joy-ride," said Dorothy, suddenly remembering D.O.R.A.

and all her Don't's.

"Mustn't what?" demanded John Dene, in the tone of a man who finds his pleasures suddenly threatened from an unexpected angle.

"It's forbidden to use petrol for pleasure," she explained.

John Dene made a noise in his throat that, from her knowledge of him, Dorothy recognised as a sign that someone was on the eve of being gingered-up.

"I'll get that automobile," he announced; and Dorothy knew that there was trouble impending for Mr. Blair.

"And we'll have a picnic-hamper, shall we?" she cried excitedly.

"Sure," replied John Dene, "I'll order one."

"Oh, won't that be lovely, mother!" she cried, clapping her hands.

Mrs. West smiled her pleasure.

"Where are you taking us to dinner?" enquired Dorothy of John Dene.

"The Ritzton," he replied.

"Oh, but we're not dressed for that!"

"It's war time and I never dress," he announced, as if that settled the matter.

"But--" began Mrs. West hesitatingly.

"Perhaps you'd rather not come?" he began tentatively, his disappointment too obvious to disguise.

"Oh, but we want to come!" said Mrs. West, "only we're not in quite the right clothes for the Ritzton, are we?"

"Don't you worry," he rea.s.sured her; then a moment later added, "that's what I'm up against in this country. Everybody's putting on the clothes they think other people expect them to wear. If people don't like my clothes, they can look where I'm not sitting. We're not going to win this war by wearing clothes," he announced.

Then Dorothy started to gurgle. The picture of endeavouring to win the war without clothes struck her as comical.