"She's on her way to Greenwich. I just said good-bye to her and her aunt at Grand Central. She's going to stop with Dad and Alice in Greenwich until we get a place of our own."
"She's never met your folks, has she?" asked Rodrigo. He wondered what Henry Dorning would think of his daughter-in-law, whether his experienced old eyes would penetrate to things in her that his infatuated son had never dreamed of.
"I'm sure they'll love her as much as I do," John enthused. "They can't help it. She's the greatest ever. Dad knows Mrs. Palmer, Elise's aunt, very well, so I got her to go along up."
Two hours later, he came back into Rodrigo's office to announce that he was leaving to subway down-town and seek out Edward Fernald, who was a minor partner in a brokerage house on Nassau Street. John confided further that he was, as yet, quite unable to settle down to the workaday problems of Dorning and Son. He was still walking upon air.
"You'll have to put up with my incompetence for a while, till I get used to the idea of being married to the world's greatest wife," he pleaded smilingly with Rodrigo.
"Take your time," soothed the latter. "I'll be indulgent. We don't have a marriage in the firm every day."
"I wish some nice girl like Elise would capture you," John offered seriously.
Rodrigo laughed. "Oh, that's what all you newlyweds preach to us happy old bachelors."
Nevertheless he dropped in to see what Mary thought of the returned and changed Dorning, after John had left.
"Mrs. Dorning is very lucky," said Mary. "John is the sort who will devote his whole life to making his wife happy."