267CHAPTER XXXIII
June tucked Esther up in bed and replenished the fire. She turned out the gas, leaving the room fire-lit.
“June,” Esther said timidly. “What did your aunt think? What did she say––when––when–––”
“She said we must go back and finish our visit another time––she took a great fancy to you.”
“You’re saying that to please me.”
“I’m not! honest Injun!” June heard the tears in Esther’s voice; she bent and kissed her gently.
“Now, not another word! I refuse to answer another question! Pleasant dreams––or better still, no dreams at all.” She went away, and shut her door behind her.
Esther lay awake for a long time watching the firelight on the walls and ceiling, and thinking of what had happened.
It seemed impossible that she had even really seen and spoken to Raymond Ashton; impossible that instead of loving him desperately, she could only shudder at the memory of him.
The tears forced their way to her eyes, and scorched her cheeks. But for Micky, where might she not have been now?––and he had refused to even let her thank him. Her heart was filled with a new humility. At best her words would be so poor––like beggars in the palace of his generosity.
But she would see him again soon––she comforted herself with the assurance. In spite of his changed manner and apparent indifference, she was sure she would see him again. Micky––as June had said of him––never failed!
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It was her last thought as she fell asleep, that she would surely see him the next day.
But Micky did not come!
Esther rested till lunch time, after which June insisted on a walk.
“The sun’s shining, and it’s wicked to stay indoors,” she declared; she marched Esther about for half an hour.
Esther had been so sure that Micky would come. She glanced up at the clock, and then at Micky’s photograph––but to-day he seemed to be looking past her into the room to where June was bustling about, and she gave a little sigh.
The evening dragged away.
“What are you thinking about?” June asked once abruptly. “You look so sad, don’t look sad, my dear! there’s lots of happy days to come yet––happier days than you’ve ever had.”
Esther was only half listening. It was too late for Micky to come now was the thought in her mind. Supposing he never came again?
She cried herself to sleep that night. When she woke it was late in the morning, and June had had her breakfast and gone out.
She came in while Esther was dressing. She looked very pleased and alert.
“Business, my child!” she said enthusiastically. “Such a duck of an American! and Micky’s introduction! Mr. George P. Rochester!––isn’t it a lovely name? He’s going to establish me firmly in little old New York, as he calls it, and make my fortune. I’m going out to lunch with him at one o’clock, and you’re coming too!––Oh, yes youare!” as Esther shook her head. “I’ve told him all about you already.” Esther laughed.
“You must have got on very fast,” she said. “And anyway I’m not going to play odd-man-out.”
June made a little grimace.
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“I telephoned Micky and asked him to come and make a fourth,” she admitted.
Esther flushed. She looked up eagerly:
“And––and is he coming?”
June shook her head.
“No, he isn’t,” she said with overdone indifference. “He said he’d got an engagement already, but between you and me and the doorpost,” she added darkly, “I don’t believe it! I think he just didn’twantto come.”
“Oh,” said Esther faintly. “I expect he has a good many engagements,” she added after a moment.
June said “Humph!” She recalled the curt manner of Micky’s refusal, and wondered if there had been a more serious rupture between himself and Esther than she was ever likely to hear about.
“So we shall have to make up our minds to enjoy ourselves without his distinguished company,” she said airly. “I dare say we shall be able to manage quite nicely. Esther, aren’t you going to wear your fur coat?”
“My fur coat!” said Esther rather unsteadily. “It’s not mine.”
She was taking from the wardrobe the shabby jacket she had worn the first night she met Micky; it looked more shabby and unsmart than ever, but she was going to wear it whatever happened.
She was smarting with humiliation. She had offered Micky her little olive branch when they parted two days ago at Charing Cross, and this is how he had accepted it!
“If he’s trying to pay me out, I suppose it’s only what I deserve,” she thought miserably, and yet it did not seem like Micky to deliberately try or wish to hurt or humiliate any one.
She did her best to push the shadow aside. She tried to laugh and talk with June as they went off to meet Mr. George P. Rochester.
He was a big, bluff man, with a hand-clasp like the270grip of a bear, and a twang that could be cut with a knife.
They lunched at a restaurant which she had never even heard of, though June seemed quite at home. There were several people at other tables, whom June knew, and Esther felt very out of it all, and unhappy.
It was a good thing she had refused to marry Micky, she thought with a sort of anger. She knew none of his friends and nothing of the life to which he had always been accustomed. She did not realise that it was the knowledge of her shabby coat that was affecting her spirits more keenly than anything.
June’s clothes were not new, but they had an unmistakable “cut” about them, and Rochester was exceedingly well dressed.
He talked to June a great deal. Once or twice he tried to draw Esther into the conversation, but, seeing that she wished to be let alone, he soon gave up the attempt.
He was certainly a most friendly person––one would have thought that he and June had known one another for years. Before lunch was ended he had invited himself to tea for the following afternoon.
“That’s Yankee push if you like!” June said when he had gone. “Give me a Yankee every time to make things go!” She looked at Esther excitedly. “Do you know,” she said, “I’ve a great mind to try and persuade that man to come into partnership with me.”
Esther laughed.
“I should say he’d suggest it himself if you give him another day or two,” she said drily. She wandered listlessly round the room.
“I shall have to leave here at the end of the week,” she said suddenly. “It’s impossible to go on living here, and letting you pay my rent and my food bill. I owe you more than I can ever repay already.”
“If you talk like that I’ll––I’ll kill you!” said June in a rage. “You don’t understand what friendship means.271Micky had tried to teach you, and so have I, and all you do is to throw it back in our faces.... O Esther, don’t!...”
Esther had turned away and covered her face with her hands.
“I know you think I’m ungrateful and horrid,” she said brokenly. “But how would you like to be in my position? I haven’t a shilling of my own in the world––the things I’ve been wearing since I came here are paid for by ... by ... oh, you know! I hate to look at that fur coat and my new frock. You talk to me about being proud and obstinate; well, I can’t help it, you must go on thinking it, that’s all; I’d rather die than take anything more from any one. I kept myself before, and I will again....”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you––I’m a perfect beast,” June declared in remorse. “But it does seem such a shame.”
Esther raised a flushed face.
“We can’t all have money and be independent,” she said hardily. “But I think you might try and understand how I feel about it.”
“I only know that I’m dying to help you, and you won’t let me,” June said grumpily. “Lord! where is my cigarette case? I shall swear or do something worse if I can’t smoke.”
She went out of the room, and Esther heard her go clattering up the stairs. There were tears in her eyes now, but she brushed them angrily away; after all, what was there to cry for! It was only that she had got to go back to where she had left off that New Year’s Eve when she first met Micky; everything was just as it had been then, save that she was the poorer now by the loss of a dream.
272CHAPTER XXXIV
June’s friendship with Mr. George P. Rochester grew apace.
“Micky’s introductions arealwaysa success,” she told Esther. “And Micky likes him too––awfully! Mr. Rochester is round at Micky’s rooms nearly every night. They’reeversuch pals!”
“Are they?” said Esther. The mention of Micky’s name always seemed to make her heart quiver. She wondered if June knew why he never came to the house now, and what she thought about it all.
In her own mind she was sure that Micky had cast her off, and the knowledge left her with a sense of desolation.
She never spoke of him unless June did so first, and she tried never to think of him. But Micky was a personality not to be lightly dismissed from memory, and he haunted her thoughts waking and sleeping.
“If I could only get some work,” she told herself, “it would be better. It’s so dreadful having nothing to do.”
She had applied to Eldred’s unsuccessfully––she had climbed the narrow stairs of the agency a dozen times only to be met with rebuff.
“You refused an excellent post I offered to you,” she was told icily. “I am not likely to be able to find you such another.”
June coaxed her into helping with the “swindle.”
“If you don’t I’ll have to pay some one else to do it,” she declared. “And oh, Esther,don’tbe so proud!”
So Esther gave in. She filled the little mauve pots with the profound skin food and fastened on lids and labels till her head swam.
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Sometimes Mr. George P. Rochester came to help––at least he called it “help”––but he did very little actual work, as he was always too busy looking at June and talking to her.
“Has he suggested the partnership yet?” Esther asked one night.
June flushed rosily.
“Don’t be absurd,” she answered, and something in her voice woke a little note of fear in Esther’s heart.
Was she to lose June too? Was there to be nothing left to her in all the world? Her hands shook as she went on mechanically filling the row of little mauve pots.
“Esther,” said June suddenly, “how long is it since you saw Micky?”
There was a little pause, then Esther said constrainedly. “I’ve never seen him since––since we came back from Paris.”
She waited a moment.
“Why?” she asked with an effort.
June kept her eyes bent on her work.
“Because I haven’t seen him myself for nearly a week,” she said slowly. “And I hear––I hear that he’s running round with that Deland girl again.”
She did not dare to look up as she spoke, and she went on quickly, “Of course it may only be gossip––but George––Mr. Rochester–––” she hurriedly corrected herself, “tells me that Micky took him to their house to dinner last night.”
Silence. June filled pots at random, wildly, then Esther spoke.
“I’ve done eight dozen,” she said. “Do you think that is enough to go on with?”
June raised her eyes guiltily, then suddenly she pushed the laden tray from her and ran round to Esther.
“Oh,” she said impulsively, “if only––only you could have made yourself care for him.”
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She put her arms round the younger girl’s unresponsive figure.
“I want you to be happy too, so badly,” she went on earnestly. “I didn’t mean to tell you yet, but I must somehow. George––Mr. Rochester–––” she broke off, laughing and crying together.
“The man’s a perfect disgrace,” she protested, “I told him so, too! I’ve only known him three weeks, and––and–––” she raised tear-drowned eyes to Esther’s face. “What can you do when a man that size kisses you?” she demanded.
Esther had to laugh.
“Why, do what you did,” she said. “Kiss him in return.”
June wiped her eyes and laughed, and shed more tears.
“I never meant to marry any one,” she said angrily. “But the dreadful creature seems to want me so desperately badly. I’m really utterly miserable, only–––”
“O June!” said Esther.
“So I am! At least!”––June looked up and suddenly laughed. “I’m not,” she said. “I’m a wicked liar! but oh, such a gloriously happy, wicked liar!”
“And it’s all entirely due to me,” Micky said when June rang him up the following morning to tell him the news.
“I introduced you! What do I get out of it all I should like to know?”
His voice was playful, but June took him seriously.
“O Micky! if you could only be as happy as I am,” she said eagerly.
Micky laughed.
“If wishes were horses, my dear–––” he said sententiously. “But don’t worry about me, I’m all right.”
“Then, will you come to dinner to-night? No,notat the boarding house! We’ll go to the Savoy––just to celebrate! We four!”
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“Wefour!” said Micky sharply.
“Yes––I shall bring Esther, of course.”
There was the smallest possible pause, then Micky said:
“I’m sorry, but I’ve another engagement. I promised the Delands to go with them to the Hoopers’ dance.”
June said “Hangthe Delands,” and rang off in a huff.
Micky hung up the receiver and turned away. He was sorry to disappoint June, and yet he had no smallest intention of meeting Esther. If she had wanted him she would have sent a note or a message––but she did not want him! More than once she had said that she hated him––it was time to learn that she meant what she said. Micky’s pride had got the upper hand at last, and he would rather have died now than make the smallest overture to the girl at whose feet he had once been willing to grovel.
Driver came to the door:
“A parcel, sir. Shall I bring it in?”
Micky answered absently:
“All right.”
Driver went out of the room. After a moment he came back with a square box which he set down on the table.
“Shall I open it, sir?” he asked, as Micky did not speak.
Micky started.
“Yes; oh, yes––open it. What the dickens is it? I haven’t ordered anything.”
Driver said that he did not know––that it had been left by a messenger. He untied the knotted string with neat precision, and rolled it into a ball before he removed the paper.
Micky walked up to the table and lifted the lid with faint curiosity.
“A fur coat,” he said blankly. “A fur–––” He stopped.276For a moment he stood staring down into the box, then he let the lid fall over it again.
“All right––you can go,” he said.
Driver walked to the door stoically, and Micky went back to the fire.
So she would not even keep the fur coat! She cared so little for him that she must needs send back his paltry gifts. What a fool he was to care––what a fool!
Driver, coming back for a moment, stopped petrified in the doorway. Micky was standing by the mantelpiece with his face buried in his arms.
277CHAPTER XXXV
It was late that night when Micky turned up at the Delands’. He had taken extravagant pains with his toilet, lingering over it as long as possible. Ever since the arrival of that parcel from Esther, he had been trying to make up his mind to take the irrevocable step, and ask Marie Deland to be his wife. He was miserably sure that she would accept him, miserably sure that he was already forgiven for the past.
He kept on persuading himself that it was the one and only thing left to him to do. He tried to believe that once the affair was settled, he would find some sort of happiness. After all, what did it matter whom he married if it could not be Esther?
He looked pale but determined when he walked into the Delands’ drawing-room and found Marie there alone. She turned to greet him with a little eager movement that was somehow comforting.
Here, at any rate, was some one who really cared for him and was glad to see him. He took the hand she held out and, bending, kissed it.
She caught her breath on a little sound that was almost a sob, but she checked it instantly and tried to laugh.
“This is almost like old times,” she said.
“Quite like old times,” Micky answered recklessly. “We’ve just turned the pages back again and gone on where we left off, that’s all.”
He looked at her and tried to forget everything else. She was pretty and dainty enough to satisfy the most exciting man, and she loved him! To a man who is disappointed and unhappy there is great consolation in the knowledge that to one person at least he counts before anything else in the world.
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She looked up at him, and impulsively he took a step towards her; another moment and Micky would have sealed his fate, had not Mrs. Deland pushed open the door and walked into the room.
It had not been any effort for her to forgive Micky for his cavalier treatment of her daughter. For the last week she had been busy telling every one that Marie and Micky had made up their quarrel––“entirely Marie’s fault it was, you know,” and so on.
“You are going to give me half your dances at least,” Micky said, when they reached the Hoopers’. He took the card from Marie’s hand and filled in his own initials recklessly against the numbers.
She laughed tremulously; she was too happy to think of anything but the present; she had got Micky again, and that was all she cared about.
“Good-evening!” said a voice at her side, and, turning, she found Raymond Ashton at her elbow.
Marie did not care particularly for Ashton. She greeted him rather coldly.
“So you’re back in town,” she said. “And your wife?”
“Not here to-night,” he answered. “She has a bad cold, so I persuaded her to stay at home. May I have a dance?”
She gave him her card reluctantly. She would have liked to have refused, but she thought Micky would be annoyed; she did not know that he and this man were friends no longer.
She saw him glance at Micky’s many initials on her card, saw the half ironical smile he gave as he looked at her.
“Mellowes is back, then?” he said.
“Yes––he came with us to-night.”
“Really! I thought–––” he paused eloquently.
Marie flushed, she knew quite well what he meant; that he must have known how Micky had once deserted her.
“I understood that Mellowes was in Paris.”
Ashton went on calmly.
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“At least I was told so by an ... acquaintance of mine––who was staying there with him.”
Marie’s eyes dilated.
“Father and I crossed by the same boat as he did,” she said with an effort. “He was alone then–––”
Ashton laughed detestably. “Ah, but not afterwards,” he said––then checked himself. “But I forgot. I must not tell tales out of school, only as every one seems to have learned of hispenchantfor the little lady from Eldred’s”––he laughed lightly.
Marie stood staring down the long ballroom. The colour slowly faded from her cheeks, leaving her as white as her frock. She looked at Ashton, intent on a crease in his glove, and she broke out stammering:
“How dare you say such a thing! I don’t believe you––in Paris––Micky–––”
He raised his brows with assumed surprise.
“I’m sorry––perhaps I should not have spoken––but I thought every one knew–––”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Of course it may be a mistake, but I happen to know the lady in question slightly––through Mellowes––and it was she who told me.... I am sorry if my carelessness has pained you––excuse me, I am engaged for this dance.”
He bowed and left her standing there, white and dazed.
“I don’t believe it! I don’t,” she told herself despairingly, and yet in her heart something told her that, for once at least, Ashton had spoken the truth.
“Our dance, I think,” said Micky beside her.
She laid her hand on his arm mechanically; they went the round of the room once, then Micky, glancing down, saw how white she was and how her head drooped towards his shoulder.
He tightened his arm a little––he swept her skilfully out of the crowd and into a small anteroom; he put her into a chair and bent over her in concern.
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“You are not well––what can I do? Can I get you anything?”
For a moment she did not speak, then all at once she rose to her feet; she clutched Micky by both arms; he could feel how her hands shook; there was heartbroken tragedy in her brown eyes as she looked into his face. For once she had forgotten her pride and the indifference into which she had been drilled for twenty years; she was no longer Marie Deland, a sought-after and courted beauty; she was just an unhappy, jealous woman.
“It isn’t true, Micky, is it?” she entreated him; her voice was only a broken whisper. “Tell me––oh, please, please, tell me. You don’t care for her, do you?––it isn’t true, is it?”
She forgot that he did not know of what she was speaking; it seemed as if everybody in the world must know of this tragedy that had desolated her life.
“I can’t bear it any longer––it’s no use.... I’ve borne all I can.... O Micky ... Micky.”
He forced her hands from his arms; he put her back into the chair and sat beside her; he hated to see the white despair of her face.
“You’re ill––upset.... It’s all right––everything is all right. You’re not to worry any more.... Everything is all right.”
At that moment he would have given his soul could he have truthfully said that he wanted her for his wife. He cursed himself for a cur and a coward, but somehow he could not force the words to his lips.
She lay back against the cushions, hiding her face.
There was a tragic moment of silence. Out in the ballroom a noisy one-step was in boisterous progress; there was a great deal of laughter and chattering; the little anteroom seemed as if it must be in another world.
Micky got up. He walked across the room and shut the door. There was a hard look about his mouth. For an instant he stood staring down at the floor irresolutely,281then he came back to Marie. He bent over her, but he did not touch her.
He spoke her name gently.
“Marie.”
She did not raise her head.
“I want to speak to you,” he said huskily.
She looked up then. Her face was flashed and quivering, and the brown eyes that for a moment met his own were full of an unutterable grief and shame.
“Oh,” she said in a broken whisper. “If you’d just go away––and leave me to myself.”
Micky did not answer. The impossibility of ever going back now struck him to the soul. This was the end, the very end––he had burned his boats and bidden good-bye to the woman he loved for ever.
Then all his natural chivalry rose in his heart. Hitherto it had been only of himself that he had thought, but now ... his eyes softened as they rested on the girl’s bowed head; he stooped and took her hand, held it fast in his steady grip.
“Will you marry me?” he said very gently.
And, oh, the long time before she answered! It seemed to Micky that he lived through years as he stood there with the rattling tune of the one-step in his ears and Marie’s tragic figure before his eyes. Was she never going to speak?
Then she sat up very stiff and straight––there were tears scorching her flushed cheeks, and her eyes seemed to burn.
“Will I––will I––marry you?” she echoed, as if not understanding.
Her voice rose a little.
“Then it isn’t true ... it can’t be true––what he said?”
“What did he say? Who are you talking about? What do you mean?”
She began to sob; quiet, tearless sobs that seemed to bring no relief with them.
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“Raymond Ashton––he told me––here! just now––that you....” She stopped, catching her breath at the change in Micky’s face; it no longer looked tender––his eyes were fierce.
“Ashton! What has he said?” His voice was roughly insistent.
“He told me that you––you were in Paris––a week or two ago––with a girl from Eldred’s.”
“It’s a lie!” The words escaped Micky before he could check them; his first thought was to defend Esther. “It’s an infernal lie!” he said again violently.
It turned him cold to think of all that the brute must have implied.
The tears were frozen on Marie’s cheeks––her hands were clasped together in her lap.
When at last she found her voice it was strained and cracked.
“... that she told him you were there with her....” Her brown eyes searched his face as if they were trying to read his very soul. “If it’s a lie,” she said shrilly, “it’s she who is lying––she told Raymond Ashton that she was there with you.”
“She told him....”
For a moment Micky stood like a man turned to stone. Was this the truth?––that Esther had told Ashton....
He looked again at Marie.
“When did Ashton tell you this?”
“To-night––not a moment ago––he is here.”
“Here!” Then to how many more people had he told the same distorted story?
The blood beat into Micky’s face; it seemed to hammer maddeningly against his temples. Nothing counted but the fact that Esther’s name was being bandied about on the lips of the creature. To stop him––to stop his lying tongue was the one thought in Micky’s mind; he saw the whole world red as he tore open the door of the silent room and strode out into the corridor.
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The noisy ragtime had ceased, but a storm of deafening applause and cries of “Encore!” filled the ballroom.
An elderly man cannoned into Micky, and stopped short with a laughing apology.
“Hullo, Mellowes––not dancing––what the deuce is the matter?” he asked with sudden change of voice.
Micky passed a shaking hand across his mouth––
“Nothing ... where’s Ashton––have you seen Ashton?”
“I’ve just left him; he isn’t dancing either. Can’t think what’s happened to you youngsters to-day. When I was your age....” He broke off, realising that Micky was not listening. “Ashton’s in the smoking-room,” he said uneasily.
Micky went on; his hands were clenched, his teeth set.
The smoking-room door was half ajar; he could see that there were several men there. There was a clink of glasses and the sound of voices talking in a rather subdued way.
Micky paused. He knew that if Ashton were there it would mean a scene, and a scene in any one else’s house.... The thought snapped at the sound of his own name.
“Mellowes! Well, you do surprise me.” There was a chuckle. “Always thought he was one of the good boys.... It just shows that you never know a man till you find him out. Rather an error of judgment to choose Paris, eh? Who did you say she was?”
“A girl from Eldred’s––pretty little thing. I knew her before he did. As a matter of fact, it was only when I cooled off....”
That was Ashton’s voice; Micky could not see him, but he could picture vividly the eloquent shrug, the meaning smile with which he finished his incomplete sentence.
The hot blood died down, leaving him cool and alert. He pushed the door wide and walked into the room.
The group of men by the fireplace scattered; some284one coughed deprecatingly; some one else seized upon a siphon and began filling an already full glass recklessly.
Nobody spoke.
Micky kicked the door to behind him, shutting it with a slam.
His eyes went straight to Ashton––a pale Ashton, trying to smile unconcernedly and brazen the situation out.
“I’ll give you two minutes in which to apologise,” Micky said in a voice of steel. “Two minutes in which to retract the damned lies you’ve just been saying in this room––or––or I’ll thrash you within an inch of your life.”
In the silence following one could have heard a pin drop. Every one looked at Ashton. Micky took out his watch.
It seemed an eternity before Ashton spoke.
“If you’ve been listening–––” he began blustering.
He moistened his dry lips.
“What I said is the truth,” he broke out spluttering. “You were in Paris with....” But the name was never spoken––Micky’s clenched fist shot out and struck him right in the mouth.
In a moment the room was in an uproar; half a dozen men rushed at Micky and pinned his arms.
“Mellowes––for God’s sake––if Hooper comes in....”
Ashton had staggered back against the wall; his mouth was cut and bleeding; he was swearing horribly.
Micky was crimson in the face; the veins stood out like cords on his forehead; he was straining every nerve to free himself from his captors.
“Apologise!” he gasped. “Apologise, you dammed cad!”
Ashton laughed savagely.
“Apologise! What for? It’s the truth, and you know it. Apologise! I’ll repeat it.... I say that you were in Paris three weeks ago with Esther Shepstone, one of the girls from Eldred’s....”
Micky suddenly stopped struggling, but his breath285came in deep gasps as he spoke. He looked round at the faces of the other men.
“I know most of you––here,” he said in a laboured voice. “And most of you know me––and you know that I’m not a damned liar like Ashton; and I know that you’ll believe me––believe me––when I tell you that the lady who was with me in––in Paris––three weeks ago––is my wife ... we’ve been married some time––and it is solely by her wish that it has been kept a secret.”
If Micky had dropped a bomb in the room it could hardly have created more consternation. The incredulity on the faces of the men around him would have been amusing to an onlooker, but to Micky the whole thing was tragedy.
He had brought Esther to this with his blundering quixotism; he was nearly beside himself with remorse.
If he had been free he would have half killed Ashton. His hands ached to get at him; to take him by his lying throat and choke the breath from his body.
He looked at the men around him with passionate eyes.
“I’ve never given any of you cause to doubt my word yet,” he said hoarsely. “And I’m sure you’ll agree with me that this man should be made to retract what he said and apologise.”
“Certainly––he ought to apologise. It’s disgraceful––infernally disgraceful,” said a man who had been listening to Ashton’s story eagerly enough a moment ago.
“What do you say, gentlemen?”
There was a chorus of assent. The men who had been holding Micky’s arms let him go.
Ashton backed a step away.
His face was livid, his eyes furious, but he knew that there was no other course open to him; nobody in the room had any sympathy with him now.
“I apologise,” he said savagely. “I didn’t know that––the––lady––Mellowes had married––the lady.”
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His tone added that even now he did not believe it; he edged away to the door and disappeared.
Micky dropped into a chair; he looked thoroughly done up. Some one pushed a glass of whisky across to him. There was an uncomfortable silence. Perhaps they were all feeling guilty; perhaps they all remembered with what relish they had listened to this spicy bit of scandal.
“Never could stand Ashton,” some one said presently, in gruff abasement. “Worm––the man is!––perfect outsider!”
There were several grunts of assent; the sympathy was decidedly with Micky.
After a moment he rose to his feet.
“I suppose an apology is due from me too,” he said; he spoke with difficulty. “But I think any of you––in the same circumstances–––”
He waited a moment.
“Quite right––certainly.... Should have done the same myself.”
Micky smiled faintly.
“And I am sure you won’t let this go any further––for––for my wife’s sake,” he added.
They pressed round him, shaking him by the hand and reassuring him. Micky took it for what it was worth. He knew that those of them who were married men would go straight home and tell their wives of the scene at Hoopers’, and he knew how speedily the story would spread.
He got away as soon as he could and left the house.
He never gave Marie another thought, till he found himself out in the street and walking away through the fresh spring night.
He took off his hat and let the air blow on his hot forehead; his hand still trembled with excitement.
He tried to think, but his thoughts would not come clearly. When he got back to his rooms he asked Driver287for a stiff brandy. The man looked at his master diffidently, and asked if anything were the matter.
Micky laughed.
“Why? Do I look as if there is?” He glanced at himself in the mirror. His face was very white.
“No, there’s nothing the matter. I’m tired, that’s all.”
Driver turned to the door, but Micky called him back.
“You’ve been with me a good many years, Driver,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’ve been a faithful servant.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The man’s stolidness did not change a fraction.
Micky took a gulp at the brandy.
“If you were to hear that I’m married, you wouldn’t be surprised, would you?” he asked with a rush.
Driver stood immovable.
“Not in the least, sir.”
“You would even say that you knew that I’ve been married some weeks, wouldn’t you?”
“I should, sir.”
“Good––you may go.”
“Thank you, sir, and good-night.”
“Good-night,” said Micky.
And now, what was to be done now?
When he left this room three hours ago it had been with the determination to put the past behind him for ever, and what had he done? Only walked more deeply into his quixotism and seriously compromised the woman he loved.
He had said that she was his wife. It gave him a little thrill to remember that a dozen of his acquaintances had heard him say it, and were probably even now spreading the story of his marriage far and wide.
He paced up and down the room. He had failed all round; even love and desperate desire had not been able to help him.
288
He thought suddenly of June; June who, with all her bluntness, had a great heart and a deep understanding.
She would not want explanations; she would know why he had done it, and sympathise.
But June was obviously not the one concerned. It was not to June that he must confess.
The clock in his room struck twelve; too late to do anything to-night. The memory of Marie returned––Marie as she had looked when he found her in the drawing-room that night; as she had looked when he had left her in the little anteroom at the Hoopers’ and gone out with murder in his heart to find Ashton.
He stopped dead in his pacing.
“Oh, you cad––you cad!” he said with a groan.
Life was an intolerable, purposeless thing. He sat down at his desk and leaned his head in his hands. His whole life seemed to spell failure. With sudden impulse he seized a pen and began to write.
For the first few moments he hardly knew what he wrote. It was only when he reached the end of the first page that he seemed to realise with a start what he had done. He looked back at the written lines with something of a shock. There was no beginning to the letter, no date or address; it simply started off as if the pen had been guided by some influence outside himself, some desperate need.
“I don’t know what you will think when you get this letter. I am writing it because to-night I think I am half mad. I love you so much; there seems nothing in the whole world that counts any more now that I am beginning to understand that I can never have you. Esther, I ask you on my knees to listen to what I have to say. I have tried to keep away from you, to forget you; I’ve tried to put you out of my heart and persuade myself that I do not care––but it’s no use. I love you; I know you care something for me, but I shall love you always. To-night I have done an unpardonable thing for your sake. I explain things so badly. I can only hope that you will understand and try to make some excuse for me. Some one knows we were together in Paris––I need not tell you who. To-night, at a289house where I was, he had told several people that you and I had been to Paris together....”
“I don’t know what you will think when you get this letter. I am writing it because to-night I think I am half mad. I love you so much; there seems nothing in the whole world that counts any more now that I am beginning to understand that I can never have you. Esther, I ask you on my knees to listen to what I have to say. I have tried to keep away from you, to forget you; I’ve tried to put you out of my heart and persuade myself that I do not care––but it’s no use. I love you; I know you care something for me, but I shall love you always. To-night I have done an unpardonable thing for your sake. I explain things so badly. I can only hope that you will understand and try to make some excuse for me. Some one knows we were together in Paris––I need not tell you who. To-night, at a289house where I was, he had told several people that you and I had been to Paris together....”
Micky had gone on writing rapidly––he seemed to have lost himself in a sea of eloquence; his heart was pleading with the woman he loved through the poor medium of a sheet of unaddressed paper.
“It nearly drove me mad to hear you spoken of by him. There was a scene, and I knocked him down ... you will hate me for this, but I would have killed him if they had let me. I told them afterwards that you were my wife––try and understand how I have suffered all these weeks––I told them that we had been married some time, and that it had been kept secret by your own wish. It’s only now, when I am more alone and can think clearly, that I see what I have done. You don’t care for me, and I have compromised you even more than that man did by his lying insinuations. Tell me what I am to do––anything, anything in the world. My whole life is yours to do with as you will. Be my wife, dear, be my wife....”
“It nearly drove me mad to hear you spoken of by him. There was a scene, and I knocked him down ... you will hate me for this, but I would have killed him if they had let me. I told them afterwards that you were my wife––try and understand how I have suffered all these weeks––I told them that we had been married some time, and that it had been kept secret by your own wish. It’s only now, when I am more alone and can think clearly, that I see what I have done. You don’t care for me, and I have compromised you even more than that man did by his lying insinuations. Tell me what I am to do––anything, anything in the world. My whole life is yours to do with as you will. Be my wife, dear, be my wife....”
For a moment the pen faltered, but Micky went on again with an effort.
“I will stay in London twenty-four hours for your answer, and then, if I don’t hear....”
“I will stay in London twenty-four hours for your answer, and then, if I don’t hear....”
The pen faltered again, and this time finally stopped.