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?”

“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 her 107 face; 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.”

“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 of 109 her 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.

“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.

“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 hates 112 by 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 room 113 fetching 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.”

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 to 114 herself 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.