She was crimson by the time she had finished, but Micky took her hand without answering, held it for a moment, then let it go.

"I suppose I mustn't offer you anything?" he said with forced lightness. "No coffee--or tea? It's cold out this morning. If you would care for anything, my man would bring it at once."

She laughed and shook her head.

"I don't want anything, thank you." She looked round at Micky's luxuriously furnished room. "Isn't it beautiful?" she asked him.

He smiled. "Do you like it? I am glad."

"I think it's lovely." She looked up at him. "I seem to have been climbing a ladder lately," she said. "Since I left that awful place in the Brixton Road--where I am now is heaps better than that was, but this----"

Micky was silent. It trembled on his lips to say that everything he had in the world was hers if only she would take it, but he knew the utter futility of it. Money and possessions counted very little with her. She would not have minded the house in the Brixton Road at all with the man she loved.

He went downstairs with her.

"So we're really friends now?" he said when he bade her good-bye. "And you'll promise to let me advise you again when you're not quite sure what you ought to do?" There was a note of anxiety in his voice.

She flushed nervously.

"It's kind of you to be interested." It seemed strange to her that after all that had happened they should have so easily got back to their old footing of friendliness. But Micky was not at all happy.

When she had gone he stood for a long time at the window staring moodily out.

When Driver brought lunch, he found Micky poring over a Bradshaw; he spoke to the man with elaborate carelessness.

"You'll have to take another trip to Paris--to-morrow will do."

"Yes sir." Driver smoothed a crease in the cloth. "To post another letter, sir?" he asked expressionlessly.

Micky looked up sharply, but Driver met his eyes innocently.

Micky coloured.

"No; it isn't a letter this time," he said. "It's to buy a fur coat."

CHAPTER XXI

"The phantom lover," said June Mason lugubriously, "is certainly turning up trumps."

It was a week later, and she was giving Micky tea.

Esther was out. She knew now that it was to see Esther he came. She was quite reconciled to the fact, and had got over her first pang of jealousy, but Esther's indifference to him enraged her.

"Can't the girl see what she's throwing away?" she asked herself furiously. "What on earth is she made of that she can't see what's waiting for her to take? If Micky had adored me as he adores her ...

well--my name wouldn't have been June Mason to-day."

But she kept such thoughts to herself and treated Micky very much the same as usual, though unconsciously there was a slight restraint in her manner, especially when Esther was present.

"I'm beginning to think that I've misjudged our Raymond," she went on laughingly. "Perhaps some one has converted him. Anyway, he's treating Esther handsomely. First the money, and last week the fur coat...."

Micky looked up with sudden interest.

"Oh, it's come, then, has it!" he said eagerly.

"Come! It's been here two days. How did you know?" she asked with sudden suspicion.

"I heard you talking about it. Wasn't it you? No? Then it must have been Miss Shepstone."

"I dare say," said June easily. "I never saw any one so delighted with a thing as she was with that coat. And it is a beauty, Micky. I only hope it's paid for," she added practically.

"Why shouldn't it be paid for?" Micky said.

She made a little grimace.

"Because Raymond Ashton never paid for things if he could help it; and you know he didn't," she told him. "However, as he seems to be a reformed character, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt." Suddenly she began to laugh. "And that isn't all," she said again. "This morning a collar arrived for that blessed cat----" She indicated Charlie sleeping peacefully on the rug. "A silver collar, too my boy, with Esther's name on it...."

Micky stooped to examine the collar; his face was red when, after a moment, he looked up again.

"Esther declares she never told him we'd got a cat," June told him doubtfully. "But, of course, she must have done so or else the man's got second sight."

Micky was drinking his tea; he choked suddenly.

A feeling of panic closed upon him. Never told him she'd got a cat!

of course she hadn't! What a fool he had been to make such a blunder--what an utter blockhead.

"I expect she did tell him," he managed to say.

"Yes, that's what I think." June lit a cigarette and pa.s.sed the lighted match over to Micky.

"Anyway, Esther goes about the place singing all day," she added drily. "There's no doubt at all that she's up in the seventh heaven of happiness. Reams of letters the man writes her. Perhaps, as the novels tell us, love is a wonderful thing----" She looked at Micky with a comical expression in her queer eyes. "I should say it must be if it's reformed that man," she added cynically.

Micky said nothing. He had been very uncomfortable about things during the last few days. As far as he could find out, Ashton had not yet been married. Supposing it had all been bluff when he said he was going to be married--supposing he turned up again in London?

Micky stayed as long as he could in case Esther came in; it was only when he began to feel sure that June knew why he was dragging his visit to such a length that he said he ought to be going.

"There's no hurry," she said kindly. "Why not wait till Esther comes in?"

Micky shook his head; he said he couldn't spare the time, but in his heart he knew quite well that he intended to wait.

"I suppose she--er--she never talks any more about taking a job now, eh?" he asked after a moment.

"No, I don't think so; that man's word is law to her, you know. I believe if he said 'Come out here and marry me at once,' she'd fly off by the next train. As a matter of fact, I'm expecting something of the sort almost daily."

"I don't think she'll do that," Micky said. He stood back to the fire, with his hands in his pockets, staring up at the ceiling.

"No!" June watched him quizzically. "Do you know, Micky," she said at last, "that I consider you've altered a lot lately?"