The Phantom Lover Part 16

Miss Mason looked wise.

"Four days is a long time when you're in love," she said. "If you were engaged to Esther Shepstone I'll bet you'd write to her every day.

You're just the kind. Oh, I know what you're going to say--that you're cut out for a bachelor, and rubbish like that, but you wait and see, Micky--it's never too late."

"I've never written a love-letter in my life," Micky declared indignantly. "And, anyway----"

June leaned across the table and looked at him with accusing eyes.

"Never? On your word of honour, Micky?"

Micky laughed and coloured.

"Well, perhaps--once!" he admitted. "But that's beside the point, isn't it?... I'll think things over and write to you."

"Yes, but soon, Micky, soon! It's not a case where you can sit down with your feet on the mantelpiece and give yourself a week to turn things over in your mind. I want to know at once, to-morrow--to-night, if possible. I know what Esther is--she'll be gone before I can turn round, and I should hate her to go. I haven't got many friends, and I do feel that she and I are going to be real friends--great friends ...

I don't know when I've taken such a fancy to anybody----"

"You don't know how glad I am to hear you say that," said Micky. His eyes were shining. Then he realised that he had displayed rather unnecessary warmth and hastened to amend his words. "I always said that what you wanted was a real woman friend," he added more quietly.

June was drawing on her gloves; she had very white hands and beautifully-kept finger-nails, and she was very proud of them.

"Never mind me," she said briskly. "You bustle about and find a post for Esther, and I'll love you for ever. Are we ready?"

She rose and gathered up her various belongings. Micky declared that she was always laden with small, oddly-shaped parcels.

"Samples, my dear man, samples!" she said briskly when Micky asked if he might not be allowed to carry some. "And they're much too precious to risk you dropping any."

"There's just one stipulation," Micky said as he followed her downstairs again. "You're not to tell Miss Shepstone anything about me--I'm going to be very strict on this subject. Will you promise?"

"Bless your heart, yes--and if you come to tea one day----"

"Oh, I don't think I'll come to tea," Micky said hastily. "I should only feel rotten--self-conscious and all the rest of it, even if I was quite sure she didn't know anything--not that there's anything to know yet," he added quickly. "I may not be able to help her."

Miss Mason laughed.

"Oh, you'll help her right enough," she said breezily. "I know you."

She dismissed him when they reached the street. "No, I don't want you to come with me; I've got some business to see to and you'd only be a nuisance." She gave his hand a squeeze. "Good-bye, and thanks ever so much Micky. You'll write to me--or wire?"

"As soon as there is anything to report."

He raised his hat and turned away, and June dived across the road, perilously near to a motor-omnibus, clutching her samples jealously to her heart.

"It'll be all right now," she told herself, with a sense of comfort.

"Everything's always all right as soon as Micky gets hold of it."

A soliloquy which made it seem all the more curious that she should have hesitated to trust herself to him for life. Perhaps, as she had told Esther, she cared too much for him to take the risk for them both. He had told her candidly that he did not care for her as a man should care for the woman he marries.

"And he makes a ripping friend! Ripping!" she told herself as she scurried along to interview another beauty specialist about the "swindle," as Micky politely called it.

CHAPTER VII

Micky went straight home when he left June. What he had heard about Esther had disturbed him very much. He loathed to think that she was unhappy.

The question was, how best to help her, and quickly. He was thankful she had made a friend of June. June was one of the best, the loyalest pal a man could ever have.

But, as June had said, Esther was too proud to take help unless it was most tactfully offered. He racked his brains in vain. It was a sickening thought that, with all his wealth, he could give her nothing. Even the few paltry pounds she had unconsciously taken from him would have been indignantly rejected had she known who was the donor.

With sudden impulse he sat down and wrote to her. After all, she had accepted his friendship; there was no reason on earth why he should not write and ask to be allowed to see her again. He wrote most carefully lest she should discover some likeness to the letter he had written to replace Ashton's.

Might he take her out to dinner one night? Any night would suit him.

And did she like theatres? He had a friend who sometimes gave him a couple of seats for a show. He would arrange for any night she liked to mention.

He thought that was a neat stroke of diplomacy--of course, she would not think he could afford to buy seats, and anyway it was true that he had a friend who often gave him boxes and things--he would have to be careful that Phillips did not send along a box this time though.

He ended up by hoping formally that she and Charlie were quite well and comfortably settled into their new home, and he signed himself: "Yours very sincerely, Micky Mellowes."

When he had finished the letter, he realised that he had written it on his own heavily embossed writing paper, so he had to dig Driver up and borrow a cheap sheet of unstamped grey paper and write it all out again. Then he went out and posted it himself.

As soon as it had gone he wished he had sent it by hand; it meant such a deuce of a time to wait for a reply; he calculated that he could not possibly hear before to-morrow night.

But in this he was pleasantly disappointed, for his own letter reached the boarding-house in Elphinstone Road that night, and Esther's reply was waiting for him with the kidney and bacon in the morning.

Micky's heart began to thump when he saw the letter beside his plate; he had never seen Esther's handwriting, but he knew by instinct that it was hers. He scanned the first lines eagerly, and his face fell.

"DEAR MR. MELLOWES,--Thank you for your letter. I am sorry, but I cannot come out with you, either to dinner or to a theatre.--

Yours very truly, ESTHER SHEPSTONE."

Micky's face was pathetic in its disappointment. He read the few curt lines through again and again, vainly trying to find something more behind the unmistakable refusal, but there it was in all its bald decision.

She did not want to go out with him any more; she did not care if she saw him again or not.

Micky left his breakfast, he no longer had any appet.i.te. He had never had such a snub in all his life--out of his disappointment anger was rising steadily; she had no right to snub him like that without a reason.

Driver, coming into the room at that moment, saw the untouched breakfast and halted midway between door and table to stare at his master.

Micky stood with his hands deep thrust into his pockets, glowering into the fire. Driver advanced a step.

"Beg pardon, sir--but wasn't you well?" he asked stoically.

Micky began to swear, then his mood changed and he laughed.

"Yes, I'm all right----" He hesitated. "Driver, would you like to go to Paris?"