John Dene Of Toronto Part 54

Marjorie no longer had any doubts about John Dene's interest in Dorothy. He had swung round his chair, and was now seated directly facing her.

"You know she worried," continued Marjorie, "and she got pale and----"

Again she paused.

John Dene continued to stare in a way that made her frightened to look up, although she watched him furtively through her lowered lashes.

"Is that what you came here to say?" demanded John Dene.

"I--I came to see Dorothy, and now I must run away," she cried, jumping up. "I've got an appointment. Good-bye, Mr. Dene. Thank you for asking me in;" and she held out her hand, which John Dene took as a man takes a circular thrust upon him.

A moment later Marjorie had fluttered out, closing the door behind her.

"Well, that's given him something to think about," she murmured, as she walked down the stairs. "Wessie must have me down to stay with her.

He's sure to get a t.i.tle;" and she made for the Tube, there to join the westward-rolling tide of patient humanity that cheerfully pays for a seat and hangs on a strap.

For nearly an hour John Dene sat at his table as Marjorie had left him, twirling in his mouth a half-smoked cigar that had not been alight since the early morning. His face was expressionless, but in his eyes there was a strange new light.

The next morning when Dorothy arrived at the office, she found Sir Bridgman North with John Dene, who was angry.

"Just because somebody's lost a spanner, or a screw-driver, they're raising Cain about it. Look at all these," and he waved a bunch of papers in front of Sir Bridgman.

"It's a way they have in the Navy. We never lose sight of anything."

"Except the main issue, winning the war," snapped John Dene.

"Oh, we'll get on with that when we've found the spanner," laughed Sir Bridgman good humouredly.

"I don't want to be worried about a ten cent spanner, and have a couple of letters a day about it," grumbled John Dene, "and I won't have it."

"What I used to do," said Sir Bridgman, "was just to tell them that everything possible should be done. Then they feel happier and don't worry so much. Why I once lost a 12-inch gun, and they were quite nice about it when I told them that somebody must have put it aside for safety, and that it had probably got mislaid in consequence. I never found that gun. You see, Dene," he added a moment later, "we indent everything--except an admiral, and it doesn't matter much if he gets lost."

John Dene grumbled something in his throat. He was still smarting under the demands from the Stores Department to produce forthwith the missing article.

"Now I must be off," said Sir Bridgman, and with a nod to John Dene and a smile to Dorothy he departed.

All the morning John Dene was restless. He seemed unable to concentrate upon anything. Several times he span round in his revolving chair with a "Say, Miss West;" but as soon as Dorothy raised her eyes from her work, he seemed to lose the thread of his ideas and, with a mumbled incoherence, turned to the mechanical sorting of the papers before him.

Dorothy was puzzled to account for his strangeness of manner, and after a time determined that he must be ill.

Presently he jumped up and began restlessly pacing the room. Three times he paused beside Dorothy as she was engaged in checking inventories. Immediately she looked up, he pivoted round on his heel and restarted the pacing, twirling between his lips the cigar that had gone out an hour before.

On the fourth occasion that he stood looking down at her, Dorothy turned.

"If you do that, I shall scream," she cried.

He stepped back a pace, obviously disconcerted by her threat.

"Do what?" he enquired.

"Why, prance up and down like that, and then come and stand over me.

It--it makes me nervous," she added lamely, as she returned to her work.

"Sorry," said John Dene, as he threw himself once more into his chair.

Suddenly with an air of decision, Dorothy put down her pencil and turning, faced him.

"Aren't you well, Mr. Dene?" she inquired.

"Well," he repeated with some asperity. "Of course I'm well."

"Oh!" she said, disconcerted by his manner. Then for a moment there was silence.

"Why shouldn't I be well?" he demanded uncompromisingly.

"No reason at all," said Dorothy indifferently, "only----" She paused.

"Only what?" he enquired sharply.

"Only," she continued calmly, "you seem a little--a little--may I say jumpy?" She looked up at him with a smile.

Without replying he sprang from his chair, and once more started pacing the room with short, nervous strides, his head thrust forward, his left hand in his jacket pocket, his right hanging loosely at his side.

"That's it!" he exclaimed at last.

Dorothy continued to regard him in wonder. Something of vital importance must have happened, she decided, to produce this effect on a man of John Dene's character.

"It's--it's not the _Destroyer_" she cried breathlessly at last.

"Nothing has happened?"

John Dene shook his head vigorously, and continued his "prancing."

"Then what----" began Dorothy.

"Listen," he said. "I've never had any use for women," he began, then stopped suddenly and stood looking straight at her.

Dorothy groaned inwardly, convinced that she was about to be dismissed.

In a flash there surged through her mind all that this would mean. She might be taken on again by the Admiralty; but at less than half her present salary. It was really rather bad luck, she told herself, when the extra money meant so much to her, and she really had tried to be worth it.

"You see, I don't understand them."

The remark broke in upon her thoughts as something almost silly in its irrelevancy. Again she looked up at him as he stood before her rather as if expecting rebuke. Again he span round and continued his pacing of the room.

As he walked he threw staccatoed remarks from him rather than directed them at Dorothy.

"There's nothing wrong with the _Destroyer_. When you're after one thing you don't seem to notice all the other things buzzing around.

One day you wake up to find out that you've been missing things. I've been telling myself all the time that some things didn't matter, but they do."

He paused in front of Dorothy, expressing the last three words with almost savage emphasis.