June introduced Micky and Esther with a sort of hurried self-consciousness. It was not by her invitation that Micky was here this afternoon, and the fact that she had asked him to help Esther embarrassed her.

“Mr. Mellowes––Miss Shepstone; you’ve both heard of each other, so I can leave you to entertain one another while I get tea.”

And she bolted out of the room.

Esther looked after her with angry eyes; she thought June might have stayed––she took a quick step forward to call her back, but Micky stopped her; he put a hand on the door above her head, shutting it fast.

“I’m going to speak to you, whether you like it or not,” he said.

She faced him angrily; she was very flushed.

“I don’t know what you mean. You’ve no right to speak to me like that. If Miss Mason has asked you here to meet me–––”

“June didn’t know I was coming. She has no more idea than the dead that we have ever met before. I haven’t told her, and I don’t suppose you have––or will,” he added grimly. “However, as we are alone, will you tell me what I’ve done to offend you? It’s not fair to take me for a friend and then fling me over as if I were an old glove.... If I’ve annoyed you, the least you can do is to tell me how and give me a chance to explain.”

Esther had walked back to the fire and Mellowes followed her. He knew that he had only got a few moments, and he meant to make the most of them.

“You refuse to see me or to allow me to take you out,” 90 he went on urgently. “And you haven’t even answered my last letter. If I have offended you–––”

“You haven’t,” said Esther, as he paused. “I’m not at all offended.”

“Then why, in the name of all that’s holy–––” he began again, in exasperation. She cut him short.

“You didn’t tell me the truth about yourself. You made out you were poor! You pretended to be some one quite different to what you are. You’ve a perfect right to, I suppose, if you wish, but I hate being deceived and treated like that. I suppose you think anything is good enough for me! Perhaps it is, but–––”

Micky brought his fist down with a bang on the back of the big armchair.

“I give you my word of honour, Miss Shepstone, that what I said was only because it seemed the best way to make you trust me. I had absolutely no other reason for pretending to––to––be anything but what I am. I know you’d have gone off at a tangent if I’d said I was unfortunate enough to be rich, I know–––”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“You didn’t even write to me from your real address––you just put a number.” She broke into an angry little laugh. “I suppose you thought I shouldn’t understand that a number can also be an expensive flat.”

Micky turned pale with anger.

“You’re deliberately trying to make out that I’m a bounder. It’s not fair––I don’t deserve it; and as to thinking anything good enough for you––I suppose you’d only take it as a fresh insult if I told you that there is nothing in the world I consider good enough for you.... I ... oh, what’s the good of arguing,” he broke out with sudden rage.

“It’s no good at all, and there’s nothing to argue about,” Esther said stiffly. She had taken off her gloves and was flattening them out nervously. “You offered me your friendship, and now I decline it. I suppose I am free to do so?”

“No,” said Micky violently, “you’re not ... I––I ...” He turned away sharply, realising with dismay how nearly he had blurted out the truth about Ashton. After a moment he spoke more quietly.

“It is pure chance that brought me here. I have known June Mason for years; we are old friends. She has no idea that I have ever seen you before, but I will tell her this moment if you wish it–––”

She raised passionate eyes to his face.

“I will never forgive you as long as I live if you dare to,” she said stormily.

Micky frowned till his brows nearly met above his kind eyes.

“Whatever I say or offer to do is wrong, of course,” he said savagely. “If I had not offered to tell her, you would probably have said that I was ashamed of knowing you ... oh, good Heavens! whatever have I said now?” he added as he saw the hot blood rush to her face.

He went over to her and tried to take her hand. “Do forgive me; I beg of you to forgive me––I’m a clumsy idiot––but you don’t know how hurt I’ve felt about being turned down in this way.”

“It’s absurd to feel hurt––I haven’t turned you down; I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that I have. Why I––I hardly know you,” she added with a little angry laugh.

Micky turned away; he stood staring down into the fire; neither of them spoke again till June returned.

She carried a tray of cakes and hot toast; she set it down with a thump on the round table by the fire.

“I coaxed it out of Mrs. Elders,” she explained breathlessly. “I generally keep some cake up here myself, but I haven’t got a bit to-day. Esther, fetch the cloth, there’s a dear; and, Micky, you put the kettle on––I have filled it.”

She bustled about, talking the whole time; if she noticed the constraint between the other two she said nothing till tea was ready, and she sat down amongst the mauve cushions with a breathless sigh.

“Now we’re going to be cosy. Well, and how have you two been getting on? Micky, I’ve told Esther so much about you, she’s sick to death of the sound of your name.”

“I never said so,” Esther protested quickly.

“Have some cake,” Micky said; he deposited a slice on June’s plate and adroitly changed the subject. He was furiously angry; he had not believed that Esther had it in her to turn on him as she had done. But the more she snubbed him, the more determined he was not to be snubbed. As he sat there stirring his tea and listening to June’s chatter he was watching Esther all the time.

She had taken off her coat now. He wondered if it was the coat his money had bought her; it was not half good enough, anyway. He thought of the furs and expensive gloves which Marie Deland wore, and he longed to be able to give some to this little girl who sat there with such angry defiance in her eyes.

He realised that this pride of hers was going to be the hardest barrier of all between them.

She could not forgive him because he was a rich man and had pretended to be poor; she could not forget that he had paid for her dinner and a saucer of milk for the cat. He looked down to where Charlie sat blinking in the firelight, and a little smile crossed his face. He wondered if perhaps some day soon she would offer to repay him for that night––if she would insist on doing so, as she had insisted on paying her share of everything with June.

“More tea?” June demanded across the table, and Micky said, “Oh––er––yes, thanks,” hurriedly. As long as the meal was unfinished Esther would have to stay in the room, he thought; she could not very well leave before; but in this he was mistaken, for Esther put her cup down almost at once and looked at June.

“Will you think me very rude if I run away?” she asked. “I’ve got to see Mrs. Elders and tell her I am staying on––I think she has been trying to let my room.”

June looked disappointed. “Oh, well, if you really must go,” she said. “Come back when you’ve seen her.”

“Thank you,” said Esther. She turned to Micky, who had risen. “I won’t say good-bye, then,” she said with an effort to speak lightly.

He held open the door for her, and a moment later she had gone. As soon as he came back to his chair June rounded on him.

“What have you said to annoy her?” She looked quite angry! “I wanted you to like each other. Really, Micky, you are the limit! She won’t come back again, you see if she does.”

“No,” said Micky. “I don’t think she will.” He laughed a rather chagrined laugh. “I haven’t said anything as far as I know,” he added. “It’s what you’ve said, I fancy. You’ve fed her up with accounts of what a wonderful person I am.”

“So you are,” said June.

He frowned.

“It’s kind of you to think so, but I don’t know anybody else who shares your opinion.”

“Well, I can’t help the world being full of idiots, can I?” she demanded in exasperation. “And, Micky, why did you come here to-day? When I asked you before you said you didn’t want to come; you’ve soon changed your mind.”

“I came to tell you about Miss Shepstone. You asked me to get her a berth....”

June laughed.

“My dear boy, you’re too late! She doesn’t want your help now, or mine either, for that matter,” she added ruefully. “She’s a lady of means––that wonderful man of hers who’s tucked up in Paris having the time of his life is going to allow her three pounds a week.”

She paused and looked across at him expectantly.

“Well, why don’t you look surprised?” she asked.

Micky swallowed hard.

“I am surprised!” he said. “Too jolly surprised for 94 anything. It’s good news, eh? I suppose she was pleased....”

“Of course she was! She’s staying on now, and is going to share my room. She had a qualm just for a moment, as to whether she ought to take the money, but I soon put her mind at ease. ‘Take all you can get, my dear,’ I said. After all, I dare say if the man’s giving her three pounds he could afford to give her about double that amount; men are not particularly generous from what I know of them––except you, Micky....”

Micky got red.

“But three pounds a week is enough to live on? Don’t you think it is?” he asked, with a touch of anxiety in his voice.

“It’s enough to live here on,” June admitted. “But it’s not great wealth. Still, she’s going to get a berth as well, so perhaps, after all, the one you’ve heard of will suit her. What is it?”

Micky was stooping, patting Charlie’s head.

“It’s in an office,” he said, after a moment; his voice sounded a little uncertain. “I don’t think it would really suit her, though––now I’ve seen her,” he hastened to add. “It would be too hard work––late hours and all the rest of it, dontcherknow.”

June looked at his bent head shrewdly.

“Humph!” she said. “Perhaps it’s just as well this phantom lover of Esther’s has turned up trumps, if that’s all you’d got to offer her.”

“Phantom lover!” said Micky; his voice sounded as if he were annoyed. “Whom are you talking about?”

“Esther’s beloved,” June said airily. “She won’t tell me his name, so I call him the phantom lover, because I’ve got an eerie sort of feeling in my mind about him that he doesn’t really exist. What do you think, Micky?”

“My dear girl, how can I possibly know?”

June produced some cigarettes.

“If he were all that she’d like me to believe he is,” she said shrewdly, “she’d tell me more about him. She 95 certainly got a bit more confidential to-day, and said that he had a cat for a mother and a few things like that. She had another letter from him this morning; he’s in Paris––on business, so he tells her.” She laughed, turning her face for a moment against the mauve cushion. Suddenly she sat upright again, “Micky, I should hate that man if I knew him!”

Micky smiled.

“Another of your ‘instinctive hates’?” he asked whimsically.

She nodded.

“I know you don’t believe in them, but....”

“Don’t I?” said Micky thoughtfully. “I’m not so sure.” He looked at his watch. “Well, I must be trotting. There’s nothing else I can do for you, I suppose? No more waifs who want billets...?”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I’m not––I never laugh at you.” He laid his hand on her shoulder for a moment. “Don’t bother to get up; you look so comfortable ... Good-bye–––”

“Good-bye––and, Micky, don’t make up your mind not to like Esther just because of this afternoon.”

“My dear, I never thought of such a thing,” he protested lamely.

June snuggled more cosily into the cushions.

“Ah, but I know what you are,” she said, for once hopelessly on the wrong track.

Micky laughed to himself as he went down the stairs; he wondered if he was getting clever, or if June was not so quick to see a thing as he had believed, that she had not noticed the constraint between himself and Esther.

He looked about him eagerly as he went out, hoping to catch a glimpse of Esther, but the house seemed deserted, quite different from what he had pictured it to be. He had always thought that a London boarding-house must be noisy and crowded and perpetually smelling of soap and cabbage water; he was relieved to find that this was fairly comfortable and quiet.

He picked up a taxicab at the corner of the road and was driven back to his flat. He felt very depressed. Everybody seemed to have interests in life except himself. He wished he had got married years ago and settled down. He thought of Marie Deland with remorseful affection. Here was another woman who must be thinking him a positive outsider. How in the world did a man put an end to a flirtation that was growing rapidly into something else without hurting a woman’s feelings, he wondered.

Ashton had accomplished it quite successfully several times. Micky sighed, and let himself into his flat.

There were several letters lying on the table; he flicked them through disinterestedly; then he stopped––the last one was from Ashton.

Micky stood for quite a minute staring down at the handwriting, which he had been at such pains to copy. Then he ripped open the envelope.

Ashton wrote from Paris:––

“Dear Mickey,––Just a line to send you my address, as promised. Hope things are going well with you. I am staying on here for the present, as I have run up against Maisie Clare––you remember her, Tubby Clare’s little widow? My son, she’s got pots of money, and at the present moment things are looking promising! The mater would be pleased if I could manage to pull it off. By the way, I dare say Driver told you I met him the other day––he was very mysterious and hadn’t a word to say! Surely he wasn’t joy-riding over here by himself? Remember me to every one.––Yours, R. F. Ashton.”

And not one word about Esther! Not a single mention of the girl who was thinking of him night and day, and only living to see him again.

Micky crushed the letter and tossed it into the fire. That settled it, he told himself; he no longer had the slightest compunction in cutting Ashton out; the fellow was not worth a moment’s consideration.