"Mother," she remarked, when she got home that evening, "John Dene's the funniest man in all the world."
"Is he, dear?" said Mrs. West non-committally.
Dorothy nodded her head with decision. "He wastes an awful lot of time, and then he hustles like—like—well, you know."
"How do you mean, dear?" queried Mrs. West.
"Well, he'll sit sometimes for an hour looking at nothing. It's not complimentary when I'm there," she added.
"Perhaps he's thinking," suggested Mrs. West.
"Oh, no!" Dorothy shook her head with decision. "He thinks while he's eating. You can see him do it. That's why he thinks salmon is pink cod. No; John Dene is a very remarkable man; but he'd be very trying as a husband."
Dorothy spoke lightly; but during the last few days she had been asking herself what she would do when John Dene was gone. Sometimes she would sit and ponder over it, then with a movement of impatience she would plunge once more into her work. What was John Dene to her that she should miss him? He was just her employer, and in a few months he would go back to Canada, and she would never see him again. One morning she awakened crying from a dream in which John Dene had just said good-day to her and stepped on a large steamer labelled "To Canada." That day she was almost brusque in her manner, so much so that John Dene had asked her if she were not well.
The next morning when Dorothy arrived at the office, she found John Dene sitting at his table. As she entered, he looked round, stared at her for a moment and then nodded, and as if as an after-thought added, "Good morning."
Dorothy passed into her own room. She was a little puzzled. This was the first morning that John Dene had been there before her.