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“Oh, you make me tired!” she said crossly. “Why will you insist on belittling yourself? Who on earth is this wonderful man that he sets himself up for such a model of superiority? He can’t be anybody if he’s ashamed of you. You don’t like Micky, I know, but, with all his money and position, if he loved you he’d be only too proud to shout it from the housetops, and not care a hang what the world thought. There’s no rotten pride about Micky––if he loved a beggar girl he’d be proud of it.... No, don’t say any more, it makes me boil!”
She lit another cigarette and puffed at it furiously.
“Do you––do you think I should go with Mr. Harley, then?” Esther asked presently. Her pretty face was flushed and troubled.
“No, I don’t,” said June emphatically. “I think you ought to please yourself. I don’t want to advise you, but it does seem to me that you’re throwing away any chance of real happiness for a––for a, what do they call it?––something beginning with a ‘c’....”
“Chimera,” said Esther. She sat with downcast eyes for a moment, then suddenly she began to cry. Perhaps in her heart she felt in some mysterious way that June was right, that this girl, with her odd instinct, had put her hand right on the heart of things, and that her happiness did not really lie with Raymond Ashton.
And yet she loved him. Night and day he was never out of her thoughts. She slept with his letters under her pillow. Since he went away he had done much to blot out all that had gone before. And yet sometimes the memory of that past unhappiness, of its disagreements and quarrels and petty unkindnesses would raise its ugly head and look at her with a sort of leer as if daring her to forget entirely.
June was all remorse in a moment.
“I’m a pig!” she said disgustedly. “I ought to be kicked. Why do you let me talk so much? It’s awful cheek of me to dare to criticise you. I’ll never do it again. He may be an angel for all I know. Esther, if101you don’t stop crying I shall cry too, and then there’ll be a nice sort of noise.”
Esther dried her eyes and laughed shakily.
“I’m silly; I don’t know why I cried. There’s nothing to cry for,” she protested.
“That’s why women always cry,” said June hardily.
102CHAPTER X
Esther climbed the stairs of the agency again the following morning. There was a little feeling of despondency in her heart. She had slept badly, and she had not been able to forget what June had said about Ashton.
Esther was influenced by June’s “instincts,” as she chose to call them; she knew it was foolish, but the fact remained all the same.
When she opened the waiting-room door she felt half inclined to turn and go away again. She would only meet with the same answer: “Nothing that will suit you to-day, Miss Shepstone.”
But for a wonder the room was almost empty, and the tall and stately one was standing at the communicating door.
When she saw Esther she came forward.
“I was hoping you would call, Miss Shepstone. Will you come into my room?”
Esther’s heart leapt. She obeyed eagerly.
A lady was sitting at the table looking rather bored and irritated.
She was grey-haired and handsome, and most beautifully dressed. She turned slightly when Esther entered, and stared at her through her lorgnette, then she looked at the stiff and stately one.
“Is this––er––the young lady?” she asked.
“Yes, madam––this is Miss Shepstone.” The stately one introduced Esther with a wave of her hand. “This lady, Miss Shepstone, is looking for a companion. Some one who can work well––and read aloud.” She looked at Esther sharply. “Can you read aloud?” she asked.
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Esther stammered out that she supposed she could, but ...
“That is a minor detail,” the lady with the lorgnette interrupted. “Miss Shepstone, I am not wanting a companion in the ordinary sense of the word. That is to say, I do not want you to be constantly with me. You will have your own bedroom and sitting-room––and I shall only want you at certain hours of the day. You will write letters for me and make yourself generally useful.” She paused, she searched the girl’s eager face through her glasses.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Twenty-four,” said Esther.
“Humph! And what have you done up till now?”
Esther flushed.
“I was in the workroom at Eldred’s. The manager has promised to give me a reference, but–––”
“Eldred’s!” the sharp gaze wavered a little. “And why did you leave there, may I ask?”
“I left to get married, but–––”
“But you are not married, of course.”
“No.”
“Nor going to be?”
“Not for the present, but–––”
She was cut short again.
“I don’t want to get used to you and to get you used to my ways and then for you to leave me,” she was told. “And I don’t want a young man constantly dangling round the house.” Her voice was sharp, but not unkind, and there was a smile in the keen eyes.
“No,” said Esther. “I quite understand.”
There was a little silence.
“Well,” said the owner of the lorgnette then, “what do you think about it? Do you think you would like to come? Do you think you would like me?”
Esther smiled, there was something in this blunt questioning that reminded her of June Mason.
“Yes,” she said. “I think I should, but–––”
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“I hate that word,” she was told promptly. “I don’t want any ‘buts’ in the question. You either wish to come or you do not. I will give you fifty pounds a year, and your keep, of course. It’s too much for an inexperienced girl like you, but I think I shall rather like you. Well, what do you say?”
Esther did not know what to say. The offer was tempting enough, but she thought of June Mason and the room with the mauve cushions where she was settling down so happily, and her heart sank.
“I should like to think it over,” she said, stammering. “I have a friend I should like to talk it over with if you don’t mind. If you will give me just a day or two....”
“Take a week by all means. I am going away myself for a few days, and I shan’t want you till I come back. Write and tell me what you decide to do. Here is my card....” She took one from a heavy silver case and laid it on the table. She looked at Esther quizzically, then suddenly she held out her hand.
“Good-bye, Miss Shepstone. I hope I shall see you again,” and the next moment she had gone.
The stiff and stately owner of the agency was smiling, well pleased.
“You are most fortunate, Miss Shepstone,” she said. “You have secured one of the best posts I have on my books. If you take my advice you will not hesitate. Make up your mind at once.”
Esther did not answer. She took up the card from the table, then she drew in her breath with a hard sound, for the name printed there was Mrs. Raymond Ashton.
105CHAPTER XI
Esther never knew how she got out into the street. She walked along like some one in a dream; her cheeks were burning hot.
Mrs. Raymond Ashton! Raymond’s mother! The woman of whom he had spoken so often and so bitterly. The woman who had raised such a fierce objection to her marriage with Raymond.
There was not much resemblance between mother and son; they were both handsome, but there was a sort of humour in Mrs. Ashton’s face which Raymond’s lacked. Esther tried vainly to find some likeness between them.
She realised how different this woman was to what she had pictured her, remembered that spontaneously offered hand. Had Mrs. Ashton known who she was? Oh, surely not, or she would never have appeared so anxious to engage her.
How angry Raymond would be. Angry that the woman he loved was to go to his mother as a paid companion. Esther could not help smiling. For her own sake she would not mind it. At least she would be with his mother and in his home; but, of course, the thing was impossible––such a situation would not be tolerable. She would have to write and refuse.
“Good afternoon!” said a voice, and, turning hurriedly, Esther found Micky Mellowes beside her.
He looked as if he were not quite sure of his reception; but to-day Esther had other thoughts to occupy her which were more interesting than he was––and the smile she gave him was almost friendly.
“Good afternoon! Isn’t it cold?”
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“Very.... Where are you hurrying off to?”
He tried to speak casually, but his heart was beating uncomfortably.
“I’m just going back home,” Esther said. “I’ve been to an agency looking for a berth.”
“A berth!” A frown came between his eyes. “What sort of a berth?” he asked quickly.
Esther laughed.
“Well, I’m think of taking your advice––and going as companion to an old lady––not that she’s very old,” she added doubtfully, with sudden memory of Raymond’s mother.
“You mean that you have decided?”
She hesitated.
“Well, I have the refusal of it.” She looked at him with defiant eyes. “I am only just hesitating––I want to talk to Miss Mason about it––she is much more worldly wise than I am.”
“June is a very sensible woman,” he said. “I am glad you like her.” He hesitated. “And the––er––post?” he asked with an effort. “Will it be in town?”
“Oh yes.”
She was obviously not going to tell him any more, but Micky persevered.
“I wonder if it is likely to be any one I know. I have quite an extensive acquaintance in London.”
“Yes,” said Esther. “But I don’t suppose you will know these people, anyway,” she added with an unconscious touch of loftiness in her voice. “The name is Ashton––Mrs. Raymond Ashton.”
There was the barest possible silence before Micky answered, a silence during which the blank dismay and anger that crossed his face would have been amusing had it not also had something of pathos in it.
“Ashton?” he said. “Oh, yes, I know Raymond Ashton very well.” He was watching her with jealous eyes, and she turned her head sharply and looked up at him.
Just for a moment a traitorous eagerness crossed her107face; he could almost see the quick question on her lips, then she laughed.
“Really! How funny! But, of course, as you say, you must know a great many people.”
“I have known the Ashtons for years. You will like Mrs. Ashton.”
There was a sort of quiet insinuation in the words, and Esther bit her lip.
“And––the son?” she asked. “I think you said you knew the son.”
“Yes, I know him––he is in Paris, I believe.”
Micky was conscious of a queer tightening about his throat; it was a tremendous effort to force himself to speak lightly.
“And shall I like him as well, do you think?” Esther asked deliberately.
Micky did not answer.
“Do you like him?” she persisted.
Micky’s restraint broke its bonds; if he had died for it he could not have checked the words that rushed to his lips.
“I detest the fellow!” he said. “He’s a beastly outsider!”
He dared not look at her. He held his breath, waiting for the storm to break, but if he had lost his self-control she kept hers admirably.
“Really,” she said. Her voice was a little breathless, but quite calm. “What does a man mean when he calls another man––such a name?”
Her face was quite colourless, even to the lips, and her hands were clenched in the shabbiness of the cheap little muff she carried.
He blunderingly tried to make amends.
“I ought not to have said that, just because he’s not the sort of man I care about,” he said stammeringly. “He’s quite all right––it all depends from what point of view you regard him. I hope you will forget that I said that, Miss Shepstone. It––it was unpardonable.”
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“It’s a matter of complete indifference to me what you say about––Mr. Ashton,” she told him.
She stopped. They had been walking along together.
“Which way are you going?” she asked.
Micky flushed up to his eyes; he knew this was a dismissal.
“I was coming along to see June,” he said. “I hoped you would allow me to walk along with you––if I am not intruding.”
Esther forced a smile, but her lips felt stiff.
“Oh, but I am not going back,” she said. Her voice sounded as if it were cut in ice. “So I won’t detain you. Good-bye.”
She turned and left him, walking quickly away again in the direction from which she had just come.
Her eyes were smarting with tears that had to be restrained.
“How dare he––oh, how dare he?” she asked herself passionately. “What does he know about Raymond?”
She could not trust herself to go back home. She walked about in the cold till she was tired out. She wanted to be sure that Micky would have left Elphinstone Road before she got there. She wondered if June knew the Ashtons too. She probably did, as Micky Mellowes knew them. They were both of Raymond’s own world, these two. It was only she, who loved him best, who was outside the magic circle of his friends.
It was nearly supper time when she got in. She paused for a moment in the hall and looked anxiously at the rows of coats and hats hanging there. She thought she would know Micky’s if she saw them there. She forgot that he might have taken them up to June’s room. She turned away with a little sigh.
At the foot of the stairs she met young Harley. He coloured sensitively when he saw her and stood aside for her to pass.
Esther flushed too. She wondered what he thought of109her note refusing the theatre. With sudden impulse she spoke––
“I hope you are not angry with me, Mr. Harley, but––but perhaps you do not know that I am engaged to be married, and so ... so I don’t think I should accept invitations from any one else, though––though it was kind of you to ask me,” she added.
“I should have been delighted if you could have come,” he said. “But, of course, if your fiancé would not care about it–––” He broke off as if there was nothing more to be said.
Esther wondered if Raymond really would mind; at first he had been very jealous, and could not bear her to speak to another man, but latterly––she hated it, because she could not forget that once he had told her she could marry a man with money if she only played her cards carefully––the man who had said that seemed a different personality altogether from the man whose letters she had only lived for during the last fortnight.
Was she mean and unforgiving that she continually found herself remembering the quarrels and scenes they had had? She wanted so earnestly to forget them; she went up to June’s room with dragging steps.
The door of the room opened before she reached the landing, and June came out.
“I knew it was you,” she said. “Poor soul! how tired you sound. Another day of miserable failure, I suppose. Never mind, come and sit down in the warm, and you’ll soon forget it.”
Esther laughed rather shamefacedly.
“It’s been a day of success, strange to relate,” she said. “But I’m tired, dead tired––I must have walked miles.” She suddenly remembered Micky; she looked round with––a quick suspicion. “Have you been alone all the afternoon?” she asked.
“Yes, quite alone,” June laughed. “Who did you expect to find here, pray?” she demanded.
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“Nobody––I only wondered if you had had any visitors.”
“I might have known it wasn’t the truth that he was coming here,” she told herself vexedly.
“Well, and what about the success?” June asked; she was sitting on the hearthrug stroking Charlie. “You don’t mean to say that the old dear at the agency really had something to offer you this time?”
Esther nodded.
“Yes, and she’s desperately anxious for me to take it, too. It’s quite a good offer, but it means leaving here and living in; and I don’t believe I want to leave here,” she added ruefully.
June looked dismayed.
“I shan’t let you go,” she said promptly. “Just as we are settling down so cosily.” She put her white hands over her ears. “No, I don’t want to hear another thing about it, if that’s it,” she said. “I shan’t listen––write and refuse it––write and refuse it at once.”
Esther laughed; she pulled June’s hands down and held them firmly.
“Tell me,” she said. “Do you know any people named Ashton?”
She was longing to find out if June did know them; it seemed such a lifetime since she had seen Raymond or spoken to him, she was hungry to hear him spoken of, even if only by this woman who probably had merely known him as an ordinary acquaintance.
“Ashton!” June wrinkled up her nose. “I know some Ashtons who live in Brayanstone Square,” she said at last. “A mother and son. A very handsome woman she is, with white hair, she has a sort of grande dame look about her––the sort of woman you can imagine in a powdered wig and a crinoline, curtsying to the queen.” She scrambled up, and, snatching a paper fan from the shelf, swept Esther a graceful curtsy to illustrate her meaning.
But Esther was too much in earnest to be amused.
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“It must be the same Mrs. Ashton,” she said eagerly. “This is her card––she gave it to me to-day––Mrs. Raymond Ashton.”
June glanced at the card and nodded briskly.
“Yes, it’s the same. I don’t know her frightfully well; she’s rather reserved, too; but I admire her immensely––well, go on.”
“She wants me to go to her as a sort of companion––she has offered me fifty pounds a year.”
June whistled.
“Not bad, is it? But you’ll refuse, of course?”
“I asked her to let me think it over; I said I should like to talk it over with you first.”
June clasped her hands round her knees and stared into the fire thoughtfully.
“She’s a widow, isn’t she?” Esther said hesitatingly. “At least––she didn’t say anything about a husband.”
“Yes, she’s a widow right enough,” June said. “And delighted to be, I should think,” she added bluntly. “I never knew the departed spouse, but from all accounts he was a perfect terror.”
Esther said nothing. Raymond had always spoken of his father as being a “rare old sport.”
After a moment––
“There’s a son, too,” June said. “A kind of Adonis to look at, beautiful eyes and all that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” said Esther. She tried hard to keep the eagerness from her voice. “Do you––do you know the son too?” she asked nervously.
June gave a queer little laugh.
“Oh yes, I know him. That is to say, I say ‘How d’ye do’ to him when I have the misfortune to meet him, but–––”
Esther’s hands were clasped in her lap.
“Why––why––misfortune?” she asked.
June Mason shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh, I don’t know––it’s hard to explain––he’s never done me any harm, but there are some people one hates112by instinct, and Raymond Ashton is one of the people I hate.” She smoothed a crease in the skirt of her frock. “He’s such a––such an awful outsider,” she added, unconsciously choosing the word Micky Mellowes had used a few hours before.
Esther sat very still. Twice she tried to speak, but no words would come. She knew that it was unfair to June to sit there and allow her to go on talking about Raymond, but something in her heart seemed to have set a seal on her lips.
“He’s that insufferable kind of creature who thinks himself irresistible,” June went on. “Micky has often told me the way he brags about his so-called ‘conquests.’ Conquests, indeed! What are they but a few poor ignorant girls hoodwinked by his handsome face and smooth tongue? Dozens of girls he’s had, my dear, literally dozens! Only the other day some one told me that Mrs. Ashton had to threaten to cut him off with a shilling if he didn’t give up some little person he was supposed to be going to marry! I don’t know how true it is, mind you, but that’s the sort of man he is––I’ve no time for him at all,” she finished vigorously.
She turned to look at Esther, and gave a little exclamation of alarm. “How pale you are! Don’t you feel well?”
“I’m quite all right––I’m just tired––I don’t think I’ll go down to supper to-night. I’ll just stay here and be quiet. I wanted to hear what you had to say about my future employer.”
“Future fiddlesticks!” June retorted. “You’re not going to her, my dear; I shan’t let you. If Raymond came home while you were there, you’d never have any peace.”
Esther was lying back now with closed eyes. Over and over again in her mind she was saying to herself––
“I don’t believe it––I don’t believe a word of it; it’s all cruel lies––first Mr. Mellowes and now June. They both hate him, that’s what it is; but I don’t believe a word of what they say.” June was bustling about the room113fetching cushions and a light rug which she had laid over Esther.
“You have a little sleep, and you’ll feel heaps better,” she said.
She went away, shutting the door quietly; and Esther hid her face in her hands.
She hardly knew why she was crying, she only knew that she was utterly miserable.
She took Ashton’s last letter from her dress and read it through again––how could any one, reading it, doubt that he loved her? How could any one, knowing his careful thought for her, believe that he was the detestable personality June and Micky had described?
She kissed the signature passionately. Nobody in all the world counted but this one man.
She got up and went over to June’s desk, which both girls used; she felt that she must write to him and tell him how much she wanted him.
When she had finished writing she looked to the head of the paper on which she had written for the address, and then she saw a postscript scribbled in a corner which she had not noticed before.
“Don’t write to me here––I shall have left this hotel by the time you get my letter. I will write again as soon as possible.”
“Don’t write to me here––I shall have left this hotel by the time you get my letter. I will write again as soon as possible.”
It was like a door with iron bars being closed in her face; she could not write after all! She could have no relief for all her longing and unhappiness; she must just wait and wait, eating her very soul out, till he wrote again.
She tore up what she had written and threw it into the fire.
“The phantom lover”––June’s half playful, half mocking words came back to her with foreboding. Was he indeed only a phantom lover? Just a creation of her own brain and desire? She tried to thrust the thought from her; she was tired and fanciful; in the morning she would be all right; it was not fair to him, it was not fair to114herself to be so doubting. She went back to June’s couch and curled up amongst the mauve pillows; life was so hard, so disappointing; it gave so little of all that one desired; the tears fell again, presently she cried herself to sleep.
June came back on tiptoe; she stole across the room and looked at Esther, then she went back to the hearthrug to keep Charlie company.
The fire had died down and she replenished it as quietly as she could, putting a knob on at a time with her fingers.
As she leaned over to poke them softly together she caught sight of a scrap of paper lying in the grate. It looked like part of a torn letter, and without thinking June picked it up––the one word “dearest” stared up at her in Esther’s writing.
June looked at it for a long moment, then she turned her head and glanced at Esther, still sleeping.
June frowned; she hunched her shoulders impatiently.
“More phantom lover, I suppose,” she told herself crossly; she threw the little scrap of paper into the fire and watched it burn with a sort of vixenish delight.
115CHAPTER XII
“I’ve decided to accept Mrs. Ashton’s offer,” said Esther suddenly.
It was the following afternoon, and she had been helping June paste labels on to the little mauve pots. She looked up as she spoke, with the paste brush still in her hand and her fingers all sticky.
“Did you hear what I said?” she demanded guiltily.
“Yes, I heard,” June said rather tartly. “And I think you’re a mean pig. However, go on! Have your own way! Don’t mind me.”
“It isn’t that at all,” Esther declared. “But I must do something––I’ve been idle quite long enough. I shall be sorry to leave you, but I shall still pay for my half of the room.”
“Thank you––thank you very much,” said June drily. Esther flushed in distress.
“Don’t be so unkind! It’s not that I want to leave you. I’ve been happier here with you than anywhere else, but I must work, I can’t live on nothing....”
“You could live on three pounds a week if you wished to. What do you suppose the phantom lover will say if he knows that his money hasn’t helped you, and that you’re going to make a drudge of yourself?”
“I shan’t be a drudge––I–––”
June broke in impatiently.
“Oh, very well––I don’t want to argue, but I think it’s mean of you. If you really liked me you’d stay....”
“I shall come to see you whenever I get any time off.”
“Yes, once a week for two hours, I suppose––and when I shall probably be out.”
“I shall write first and let you know when I’m coming.”
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June took no notice; she screwed the lid on to a perfume bottle and wiped her fingers on the white overall.
“You needn’t put any more labels on,” she said shortly. “I can do the rest myself.”
She took the tray away from Esther and carried it into her bedroom; when she came back there was a suspicion of tears in her eyes. Esther looked distressed. She felt that she was behaving meanly, and yet she meant to go to Mrs. Ashton’s.
“Micky Mellowes is coming directly,” June said tartly. “If you don’t want to see him you’d better go. I know you hate him....”
Esther turned scarlet. She took off the apron she had borrowed from June and turned to the door.
Before she reached it June followed.
“I’m a pig. I apologise humbly! Please stay. Why don’t you box my ears when I speak to you like this?” She dragged Esther back to the fire. “I’m wild because you’ve made up your mind to leave me. Our friendship doesn’t mean anything to you.... There’s Micky––he’ll want to know why I’ve been crying. Amuse him for five minutes, there’s an angel, and I’ll come back.”
She was gone in a flash.
A smiling Lydia showed Micky into the room. Lydia liked Micky; he was always courteous, and he had been generous with his tips on each occasion that he had visited the house.
Micky looked a little embarrassed when he saw Esther. He glanced quickly round the room. “June ... I–––”
“She’s coming in a moment,” Esther explained. “Won’t you sit down?”
Micky sat on the arm of the big chair; he was cold; he leaned forward, rubbing his hands vigorously. Esther watched him critically.
She had told June that she did not consider him in the least good-looking, but now the thought crossed her mind that this had not been quite a fair thing.
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He was tall and well made, and he had brown hair that grew well about his temples, and waved slightly where it parted.
His nose was nothing particular and slightly crooked, and his eyes were nondescript in colour, but kind ... so kind! Esther remembered it was the first thing she had noticed about him the night they met.
He looked up.
“Well,” he said, “have you found another berth yet?”
“I’m going to Mrs. Ashton’s,” Esther said.
She was amazed at the sudden change in his face; a look of furious anger flashed into his eyes; he rose to his feet.
“You’re not serious?” he said quietly.
Esther laughed; she felt painfully nervous without knowing why.
“Serious? Indeed I am!” she answered. “Mr. Mellowes, what are you doing?...”
Micky had caught her hands. Jealousy was driving him with whips of fire––jealousy of this phantom lover, whom he himself had created.
“You’re not to go,” he said hoarsely. “I––I––I can’t bear to think of you having to work for your living. There’s no need––it’s all nonsense. You’d hate being at the Ashtons.... Esther–––”
She wrenched herself free; she was white to the lips.
“You must be mad!” she said. “How dare you speak like this? What is it to you what I do? How dare you try to interfere? What business is it of yours?”
Micky laughed shakily; he had recovered himself a little now.
“It’s everything to me,” he said rather hoarsely. “You must know that it is. Esther, will you marry me?”
If only premeditated proposals were made, there would be few marriages in the world. Ten minutes ago, when Micky Mellowes walked into the room, he had no intention of asking Esther to marry him, but now it seemed118as if he had come for that express purpose as he stood there, grimly obstinate.
There was a moment of silence; then Esther drew herself up.
“I think you must be mad,” she said. “I’ve only seen you once or twice in my life. I have told you that I am already engaged.”
“I know, but it makes no difference,” said Micky. “I ask you to marry me––will you marry me?”
She drew back from him.
“You must be mad.”
Micky laughed. “You’ve said that two or three times already, but I assure you that I’m quite sane. I loved you the first moment I ever saw you, but, of course, you won’t believe it. However, that doesn’t matter––you haven’t answered my question. Will you marry me?”
“You know I am engaged––how dare you?...” She backed away from him till she was close to the door. Micky laughed savagely.
“You needn’t be afraid––I’m not going to hurt you––I’m not going to move from this hearthrug, but I should like you to answer my question. Once again, will you marry me?”
“No–––”
He forgot his promise and took a step towards her.
“I can make you happier than any other man possibly could. I’ve never cared for a woman in my life till I met you....”
“I wouldn’t marry you if you were the only man in the world––I––I don’t even like you....” Her voice shook with anger now. “My answer is no––no––no! I shall never change my mind if I live to be a hundred ...” she added vehemently. The words seemed forced from her by something in his eyes.
“You will,” said Micky calmly, though he felt anything but calm. “Women always do; but if you don’t feel like changing it just at this moment, will you please tell June I am here? I came to see her, and I’m tired of waiting....”119He turned away and went back to his seat on the arm of the big chair as if nothing had happened, but his hand shook when he tried to light a cigarette.
When June came back he was absently turning the pages of a magazine; she looked at him for a moment, then began to laugh.
“Micky! What in the world has happened to you lately? Do you always read a paper upside down?”
Micky started, looked down at the magazine, and said a bad word; then he laughed too, and flinging the magazine across the room got to his feet, stretching his long arms.
“Where’s Esther?” June demanded. “I asked her to stay and amuse you till I came back....”
“She did her best,” said Micky drily. “But I am afraid I bored her.”
June looked annoyed.
“I do think you two might try and like one another, if only for my sake,” she said. “It’s so perfectly obvious that you hate one another, and I cannot see why for the life of me.”
“One of your instinctive hates, perhaps,” Micky submitted, with a touch of irony. He went back to the chair.
“Miss Shepstone tells me she has found a berth,” he said, after a moment. June nodded.
“Yes. Did she tell you with whom?”
“Yes; Mrs. Ashton.”
Something in the tone of his voice made June look up quickly.
“Well?” she said.
Micky shrugged his shoulders.
“Nothing––I dared to suggest that perhaps she would not like the place, and she flew at me.”
June laughed.
“That’s just like Esther; she asks for your advice, and then–––”
“She didn’t ask for mine,” Micky cut in. “I very kindly volunteered the information.”
120
“Oh!” June was on her knees now toasting buns.
“They’re stale,” she informed Micky candidly. “But you won’t know it when they’re toasted.”
Micky watched in silence. He was wondering if June had heard anything of his conversation with Esther; they had both spoken rather loudly. He was also wondering whether he should tell June the whole story.
“You must make allowances for her,” June said briskly, as he was still hesitating. “I know she’s worried about this man. I discovered another thing this morning, Micky”––she turned with a sudden jerk to look at him, and the bun fell off the fork into the fire.
Micky laughed.
“Well, what have you discovered now?” he inquired.
“Why, that she can’t write to him––he doesn’t give her an address––or, if he does, he takes good care to move on before she has time to answer his letters. It looks to me, Micky, as if that young man is shirking his responsibilities. If you ask my candid opinion, Esther won’t ever see him again.”
Micky said “Rot!” rather uncomfortably. “If the fellow is travelling––moving about....”
“He could give her an address and have the letters sent on, couldn’t he?” June demanded.
Micky rubbed his chin.
“What’s she want to write to him for?” he asked presently.
June swung round, and a second bun almost shared the fate of the first, but she grabbed it back in time.
“What does she want to write to him for?” she echoed with scorn. “My poor child, what does any one want to write to any one for? She’s in love with the man, and when you’re in love you simply have to write it down––at least, that’s what I understand from people with wide experience. Esther’s bursting to write and tell the phantom lover how much she loves him and what a wonderful man he is; as a matter of fact she does write to him, and tears the letters up again, and that’s no satisfaction.121I wish to goodness he’d get run over and done with,” she added exasperatedly.
“I don’t suppose she wishes it,” said Micky.
“That’s because she doesn’t know what’s good for her; he was probably the first man who had ever paid her any attention, and from what she says he’s a bit of a swell, and I suppose she was flattered....”
“Rot!” said Micky violently; it made him boil to hear June say things like this. Ashton superior to Esther? It was like the man’s confounded impudence to even think such a thing.
“Not such rot,” June said wisely. “And that’s what all the trouble is about, or my name’s not what it is. He has a stuck-up old cat of a mother who won’t condescend to know Esther.... What did you say?”
“Nothing,” said Micky. He got up and began strolling about the room with his hands in his pockets, and June finished toasting her buns and made the tea.
“I’ll just go up and tell Esther,” she said. She went out of the room and upstairs.
“Tea,” she announced cheerfully, knocking at Esther’s door; she turned the handle and went in. Esther was standing by the window looking out into the neglected garden at the back of the house; she turned.
“I’m not really hungry, and if you’d like to have Mr. Mellowes to yourself–––” she began.
June stared at her.
“My dear,” she said then drily, “if I’d wanted to have Mr. Mellowes to myself I should have married him long ago; so don’t pretend you’re not dying for one of the stale but toasted buns.”
She linked her arm in Esther’s, and they went downstairs together. Esther did not want to come, but it seemed easier to give way than to make excuses. She took the chair which Micky brought forward; she felt a little nervous and ill at ease. Once, when their eyes met, she found herself colouring sensitively.
Micky let her alone in a marked fashion and talked to122June. He had found the man he had been looking for for months, he declared, a good business man, honest–––
“Really honest, Micky?” June asked, laughing.
“Really honest,” Micky maintained. “Do you think I’d put you on to him else? I’ve told him all about you. I went out to lunch with him yesterday and we talked face creams and vanities till my head reeled. He’s full of ideas, bursting with fresh notions for advertising. He didn’t say so in actual words, but he thinks you’ll be a little gold mine if you’ll put yourself in his hands.”
June’s eyes sparkled; she jumped up from her chair, put her arms around Micky’s neck, and gave him a sounding kiss.
“You’re a dear,” she said, “and I just love you!”
Esther glanced up quickly. June need not have done that, she thought with a touch of irritation, but Micky only laughed.
“Come here and you shall have that back with compound interest,” he said, but June shook her head.
“That’s enough for to-day, and Esther’s looking shocked to death.”
“I’m not––I never thought about it,” Esther protested indignantly. June laughed.
“Well, you looked angry anyway,” she declared. “Didn’t she, Micky?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t notice,” he answered coolly, but he had, and for a moment his pulses had leapt at sight of the anger in Esther’s eyes; she could not surely hate him as much as she pretended if it annoyed her that June should kiss him.
But she was indifferent enough now at all events; she was leaning back listlessly, her eyes fixed on the flames, her face sad and thoughtful.
She was thinking about Ashton, Micky told himself savagely, wishing he were here, no doubt––Ashton, who even at that moment was probably running round Paris with Tubby Clare’s little widow.