The Phantom Lover Part 68

"So we shall have to make up our minds to enjoy ourselves without his distinguished company," she said airly. "I dare say we shall be able to manage quite nicely. Esther, aren't you going to wear your fur coat?"

"My fur coat!" said Esther rather unsteadily. "It's not mine."

She was taking from the wardrobe the shabby jacket she had worn the first night she met Micky; it looked more shabby and unsmart than ever, but she was going to wear it whatever happened.

She was smarting with humiliation. She had offered Micky her little olive branch when they parted two days ago at Charing Cross, and this is how he had accepted it!

"If he's trying to pay me out, I suppose it's only what I deserve,"

she thought miserably, and yet it did not seem like Micky to deliberately try or wish to hurt or humiliate any one.

She did her best to push the shadow aside. She tried to laugh and talk with June as they went off to meet Mr. George P. Rochester.

He was a big, bluff man, with a hand-clasp like the grip of a bear, and a tw.a.n.g that could be cut with a knife.

They lunched at a restaurant which she had never even heard of, though June seemed quite at home. There were several people at other tables, whom June knew, and Esther felt very out of it all, and unhappy.

It was a good thing she had refused to marry Micky, she thought with a sort of anger. She knew none of his friends and nothing of the life to which he had always been accustomed. She did not realise that it was the knowledge of her shabby coat that was affecting her spirits more keenly than anything.

June's clothes were not new, but they had an unmistakable "cut" about them, and Rochester was exceedingly well dressed.

He talked to June a great deal. Once or twice he tried to draw Esther into the conversation, but, seeing that she wished to be let alone, he soon gave up the attempt.

He was certainly a most friendly person--one would have thought that he and June had known one another for years. Before lunch was ended he had invited himself to tea for the following afternoon.

"That's Yankee push if you like!" June said when he had gone. "Give me a Yankee every time to make things go!" She looked at Esther excitedly. "Do you know," she said, "I've a great mind to try and persuade that man to come into partnership with me."

Esther laughed.

"I should say he'd suggest it himself if you give him another day or two," she said drily. She wandered listlessly round the room.

"I shall have to leave here at the end of the week," she said suddenly. "It's impossible to go on living here, and letting you pay my rent and my food bill. I owe you more than I can ever repay already."

"If you talk like that I'll--I'll kill you!" said June in a rage. "You don't understand what friendship means. Micky had tried to teach you, and so have I, and all you do is to throw it back in our faces.... O Esther, don't!..."

Esther had turned away and covered her face with her hands.

"I know you think I'm ungrateful and horrid," she said brokenly. "But how would you like to be in my position? I haven't a shilling of my own in the world--the things I've been wearing since I came here are paid for by ... by ... oh, you know! I hate to look at that fur coat and my new frock. You talk to me about being proud and obstinate; well, I can't help it, you must go on thinking it, that's all; I'd rather die than take anything more from any one. I kept myself before, and I will again...."

"I didn't mean to hurt you--I'm a perfect beast," June declared in remorse. "But it does seem such a shame."

Esther raised a flushed face.

"We can't all have money and be independent," she said hardily. "But I think you might try and understand how I feel about it."

"I only know that I'm dying to help you, and you won't let me," June said grumpily. "Lord! where is my cigarette case? I shall swear or do something worse if I can't smoke."

She went out of the room, and Esther heard her go clattering up the stairs. There were tears in her eyes now, but she brushed them angrily away; after all, what was there to cry for! It was only that she had got to go back to where she had left off that New Year's Eve when she first met Micky; everything was just as it had been then, save that she was the poorer now by the loss of a dream.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

June's friendship with Mr. George P. Rochester grew apace.

"Micky's introductions are _always_ a success," she told Esther. "And Micky likes him too--awfully! Mr. Rochester is round at Micky's rooms nearly every night. They're _ever_ such pals!"

"Are they?" said Esther. The mention of Micky's name always seemed to make her heart quiver. She wondered if June knew why he never came to the house now, and what she thought about it all.

In her own mind she was sure that Micky had cast her off, and the knowledge left her with a sense of desolation.

She never spoke of him unless June did so first, and she tried never to think of him. But Micky was a personality not to be lightly dismissed from memory, and he haunted her thoughts waking and sleeping.

"If I could only get some work," she told herself, "it would be better. It's so dreadful having nothing to do."

She had applied to Eldred's unsuccessfully--she had climbed the narrow stairs of the agency a dozen times only to be met with rebuff.

"You refused an excellent post I offered to you," she was told icily.

"I am not likely to be able to find you such another."

June coaxed her into helping with the "swindle."

"If you don't I'll have to pay some one else to do it," she declared.

"And oh, Esther, _don't_ be so proud!"

So Esther gave in. She filled the little mauve pots with the profound skin food and fastened on lids and labels till her head swam.

Sometimes Mr. George P. Rochester came to help--at least he called it "help"--but he did very little actual work, as he was always too busy looking at June and talking to her.

"Has he suggested the partnership yet?" Esther asked one night.

June flushed rosily.

"Don't be absurd," she answered, and something in her voice woke a little note of fear in Esther's heart.

Was she to lose June too? Was there to be nothing left to her in all the world? Her hands shook as she went on mechanically filling the row of little mauve pots.

"Esther," said June suddenly, "how long is it since you saw Micky?"

There was a little pause, then Esther said constrainedly. "I've never seen him since--since we came back from Paris."

She waited a moment.

"Why?" she asked with an effort.

June kept her eyes bent on her work.

"Because I haven't seen him myself for nearly a week," she said slowly. "And I hear--I hear that he's running round with that Deland girl again."