But she shook her head.

"No, no ... please leave me alone."

June had discovered a friend in a seat a row or two ahead with whom she was trying to carry on a conversation; she had no eyes for Micky or Esther. Micky gave a sigh of relief when the lights were lowered again; he could feel all that Esther was suffering, he could put himself in her place so thoroughly.

If he went round to the box and made sure if it were Ashton, perhaps that would be the best way; he could manage to give him the tip then to keep out of the way. He half rose in his seat, but Esther moved at once, laying her fingers on his arm.

"Oh, don't go--don't leave me here," she said tremulously.

It was not the man himself she wanted, but his presence somehow gave her a feeling of confidence; if, indeed, it was Raymond up there in the box. She tried to argue herself out of the fancy; he would have let her know if he had come to London--surely she would have been the first to whom he would have come; she was mad to ever think the man up there in the background could be Raymond.

But the conviction was there in her mind.

"It is he--I know it's he," something in her heart was saying over and over again obstinately.

The rest of the play seemed endless; she rose with a quick breath of thankfulness when it was over.

"You are in a hurry," June said. "Haven't you enjoyed it?"

"Yes, oh yes, but it's hot--I want to get out."

Micky was deliberately being as slow as he could--he blocked the way out obstinately; the stalls were almost empty when at last they left them.

June touched his arm.

"Micky--is--Esther ill? Look how white she is."

Esther was some little way ahead of them; she seemed to be trying to get out as quickly as possible.

"It's too hot for her, poor darling!" June said. "Micky----"

Micky laughed savagely.

"It's not that," he said, "but Ashton was up in that box with his mother, and she saw him."

"Micky----" He silenced her with a frown. He followed Esther as quickly as he could, but she was outside in the cold night air before he overtook her. There was a crowd here too--rows of cars and carriages outside, and women in thin evening frocks and furs shivering in the cold wind.

Micky drew Esther's hand through his arm.

"We shall find our cab this way, I think," he said evenly.

He had seen Mrs. Ashton only a few yards away, and he dreaded every moment that Esther would see her, and see, too, who was with her.

A sudden block in the crowd momentarily hindered them, and in that second a man's light laugh rang out above the noise and chatter of voices.

Micky felt the girl beside him give a convulsive start. She tried to drag her fingers from his, but he held them fast.

The crowd was moving again now; a second, and Raymond and his mother were lost to sight.

Micky had slipped an arm round Esther; he was white to the lips. He knew now how near he had been to discovery and the wreck of all his hopes. He tried to pretend that he did not understand the cause of her agitation. He looked down at her.

"Better now you're in the air?" he asked. "It was hot in the theatre.

I--Esther----"

She had swung heavily against him, and looking down in sudden alarm, Micky saw that she had fainted.

CHAPTER XX

Looking back to that night at the theatre it always seemed to June Mason that she had been most extraordinarily blind in not seeing before that it was Esther for whom Micky Mellowes cared.

One glance at his face as he lifted the girl in his arms told her more than any words would have done; there was a sort of indescribable rage and pain in his eyes as he looked down at the white face lying against his shoulder.

People gathered about them, curious and sympathetic. June heard some one say that it had been so "deuced hot in the theatre, no wonder people fainted," but she knew all the time that it was nothing to do with the heat; she stooped mechanically and picked up Esther's gloves which had fallen from her nerveless hand before she followed Micky back into the foyer, where he laid Esther down on one of the long velvet lounges.

Afterwards she realised that the sudden discovery that Micky loved her friend had been something of a shock to her, that she had even been faintly jealous; she did not want to marry him herself, and yet they had been such good friends, it gave her an odd little pain to think that there was somebody else whom he placed a long way ahead of her in his heart.

Most of the people had gone, one or two of the theatre attendants lingered; it seemed a long time before Esther opened her eyes. She lay for a moment, looking vaguely about her, then her eyes came back to Micky, who was bending over her, his face scarcely less white than her own.

She made an effort to lift herself from his arm; then quite suddenly she burst into tears.

The little sound of sobbing broke the spell that seemed, to have held June; she went down on her knees beside her, both arms round the slender, shaking figure.

Micky had risen to his feet. June glanced up at him.

"Go and find the taxi and leave her to me," she said sharply. The look of suffering in his face hurt her. Micky went out into the cold night bareheaded. He hardly knew what he was doing. He stood for some minutes on the path forgetting why he had come out at all, before some one, jostling against him, brought him back to a sense of time and place.

He went down the road to look for a taxi. When he came back Esther was sitting up, wrapped in her cloak. She was not crying now, but she looked like a child who wants to cry but is determined not to.

June was standing beside her.

"We're quite ready," she said. She kept an arm about Esther, and Micky followed them silently.

He saw them into the cab, but did not follow. June asked a sharp question: "Aren't you coming?"

"No--at least, not if you can manage without me." His voice sounded unnerved; he looked away from June to where Esther was huddled into a corner beside her, and suddenly, as if urged by an impulse he could not control, he leaned forward, groped for her hand in the darkness, and, bending, kissed it pa.s.sionately.

A moment later he had stepped back and shut the door.

He stood looking after the cab till it vanished round a corner, then he went back to the theatre for his hat and coat, and set off again down the road.

He was not conscious of any real emotion; but he walked swiftly as a man does who has a set purpose, and he did not stop till he found himself outside the Ashtons' house.

It was not far off midnight, but lights burned in many of the windows, and after a swift glance at the face of the house he went up the steps and rang the bell.