For a moment he looked at her, then turning on his heel said "good evening," and with a nod walked out.
Dorothy had expected him to make some remark about these enquiries. She knew that John Dene had no friends in London, and the questions as to when he was going away had struck her as strange.
The next day was a repetition of the first. A few letters were dictated, a sheaf of documents handed to her to copy, and John Dene disappeared. Again lunch was brought for her, which she ate alone, and at five o'clock he came in and signed the letters.
By this time Dorothy was convinced that he was ill. The strain of the past few weeks had evidently been telling on him. When he had signed the last letter she bluntly enquired if he felt better.
"Better?" he interrogated. "I haven't been ill."
"I thought you didn't seem quite well," said Dorothy hesitatingly; but he brushed aside the enquiry by picking up his hat and bidding her "good evening."
Dorothy was feeling annoyed and a little hurt; and preserved an attitude of businesslike brevity in all her remarks to John Dene. If he chose to adopt the attitude of the uncompromising employer, she on her part would humour him by becoming an ordinary employee. Still she had to confess to herself that the old pleasure in her work had departed. Hitherto she had looked forward to her arrival at the office, the coming of John Dene, their luncheons together and the occasional little chats that were sandwiched in between her work.
She had become deeply interested in the Destroyer and what it would achieve in the war. She had been flattered by the confidence that John Dene had shown hi her discretion, and had felt that she was "doing her bit." Again, the sense of being behind the scenes pleased her. She was conscious of knowing secrets that were denied even to Cabinet Ministers. The members of the War Cabinet knew less than she did about the Destroyer and what was expected of it.
John Dene was a man who did everything thoroughly. If he trusted anyone, he did it implicitly; if he distrusted anyone, he did it uncompromisingly. Where he liked, he liked to excess; where he disliked, he disliked to the elimination of all good qualities. Half measures did not exist for John Dene of Toronto.
When Dorothy discovered that all the old intimacy had passed away, and John Dene had become merely an employer, treating her as a secretary, she was conscious that the glamour had fallen from her work. Somehow or other the Destroyer had receded into something impersonal, whereas hitherto it had appeared to her as if she had been in some way or other intimately associated with it.