"That he got lost. I—I know," she added.
"Know what?" asked Dorothy, her voice still weaker.
"That you're keen on him."
"I'm not," Dorothy sniffed. "I'm not, so there." Again she sniffed, and Marjorie with the wisdom of her sex was silent, wondering how long she would be able to stand the tickling of Dorothy's tears as they coursed down her cheeks.
At the end of a fortnight Sir Lyster Grayne decided to close John Dene's offices, and Dorothy returned to the Admiralty, resuming her former position; but, thanks to Sir Bridgman North's intervention, her salary remained the same as before John Dene's disappearance.
All the girls were greatly interested in what they called "John Dene's vanishing trick." Dorothy became weary of answering their questions and parrying their not ill-natured impertinences. Sometimes she felt she must scream.
Everybody she encountered seemed to think it necessary to refer to the very subject she would have wished left unmentioned.
One day she had encountered Sir Bridgman North in one of the corridors. Recognising her, he had stopped to enquire if she were still receiving her full salary. Then with a cheery "I don't want to be gingered-up when the good John Dene returns," he had passed on with a smile and a salute.
At home it was the same. A pall of depression seemed to have descended upon the little flat. Mrs. West tactfully refrained from asking questions; but Dorothy was conscious that John Dene was never very far from her thoughts.
Their week-end excursions had lost their savour, and they both recognised how much John Dene had become part of their lives.