The Phantom Lover Part 70

He looked pale but determined when he walked into the Delands'

drawing-room and found Marie there alone. She turned to greet him with a little eager movement that was somehow comforting.

Here, at any rate, was some one who really cared for him and was glad to see him. He took the hand she held out and, bending, kissed it.

She caught her breath on a little sound that was almost a sob, but she checked it instantly and tried to laugh.

"This is almost like old times," she said.

"Quite like old times," Micky answered recklessly. "We've just turned the pages back again and gone on where we left off, that's all."

He looked at her and tried to forget everything else. She was pretty and dainty enough to satisfy the most exciting man, and she loved him!

To a man who is disappointed and unhappy there is great consolation in the knowledge that to one person at least he counts before anything else in the world.

She looked up at him, and impulsively he took a step towards her; another moment and Micky would have sealed his fate, had not Mrs.

Deland pushed open the door and walked into the room.

It had not been any effort for her to forgive Micky for his cavalier treatment of her daughter. For the last week she had been busy telling every one that Marie and Micky had made up their quarrel--"entirely Marie's fault it was, you know," and so on.

"You are going to give me half your dances at least," Micky said, when they reached the Hoopers'. He took the card from Marie's hand and filled in his own initials recklessly against the numbers.

She laughed tremulously; she was too happy to think of anything but the present; she had got Micky again, and that was all she cared about.

"Good-evening!" said a voice at her side, and, turning, she found Raymond Ashton at her elbow.

Marie did not care particularly for Ashton. She greeted him rather coldly.

"So you're back in town," she said. "And your wife?"

"Not here to-night," he answered. "She has a bad cold, so I persuaded her to stay at home. May I have a dance?"

She gave him her card reluctantly. She would have liked to have refused, but she thought Micky would be annoyed; she did not know that he and this man were friends no longer.

She saw him glance at Micky's many initials on her card, saw the half ironical smile he gave as he looked at her.

"Mellowes is back, then?" he said.

"Yes--he came with us to-night."

"Really! I thought----" he paused eloquently.

Marie flushed, she knew quite well what he meant; that he must have known how Micky had once deserted her.

"I understood that Mellowes was in Paris."

Ashton went on calmly.

"At least I was told so by an ... acquaintance of mine--who was staying there with him."

Marie's eyes dilated.

"Father and I crossed by the same boat as he did," she said with an effort. "He was alone then----"

Ashton laughed detestably. "Ah, but not afterwards," he said--then checked himself. "But I forgot. I must not tell tales out of school, only as every one seems to have learned of his _penchant_ for the little lady from Eldred's"--he laughed lightly.

Marie stood staring down the long ballroom. The colour slowly faded from her cheeks, leaving her as white as her frock. She looked at Ashton, intent on a crease in his glove, and she broke out stammering:

"How dare you say such a thing! I don't believe you--in Paris--Micky----"

He raised his brows with a.s.sumed surprise.

"I'm sorry--perhaps I should not have spoken--but I thought every one knew----"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Of course it may be a mistake, but I happen to know the lady in question slightly--through Mellowes--and it was she who told me.... I am sorry if my carelessness has pained you--excuse me, I am engaged for this dance."

He bowed and left her standing there, white and dazed.

"I don't believe it! I don't," she told herself despairingly, and yet in her heart something told her that, for once at least, Ashton had spoken the truth.

"Our dance, I think," said Micky beside her.

She laid her hand on his arm mechanically; they went the round of the room once, then Micky, glancing down, saw how white she was and how her head drooped towards his shoulder.

He tightened his arm a little--he swept her skilfully out of the crowd and into a small anteroom; he put her into a chair and bent over her in concern.

"You are not well--what can I do? Can I get you anything?"

For a moment she did not speak, then all at once she rose to her feet; she clutched Micky by both arms; he could feel how her hands shook; there was heartbroken tragedy in her brown eyes as she looked into his face. For once she had forgotten her pride and the indifference into which she had been drilled for twenty years; she was no longer Marie Deland, a sought-after and courted beauty; she was just an unhappy, jealous woman.

"It isn't true, Micky, is it?" she entreated him; her voice was only a broken whisper. "Tell me--oh, please, please, tell me. You don't care for her, do you?--it isn't true, is it?"

She forgot that he did not know of what she was speaking; it seemed as if everybody in the world must know of this tragedy that had desolated her life.

"I can't bear it any longer--it's no use.... I've borne all I can....

O Micky ... Micky."

He forced her hands from his arms; he put her back into the chair and sat beside her; he hated to see the white despair of her face.

"You're ill--upset.... It's all right--everything is all right. You're not to worry any more.... Everything is all right."

At that moment he would have given his soul could he have truthfully said that he wanted her for his wife. He cursed himself for a cur and a coward, but somehow he could not force the words to his lips.

She lay back against the cushions, hiding her face.

There was a tragic moment of silence. Out in the ballroom a noisy one-step was in boisterous progress; there was a great deal of laughter and chattering; the little anteroom seemed as if it must be in another world.

Micky got up. He walked across the room and shut the door. There was a hard look about his mouth. For an instant he stood staring down at the floor irresolutely, then he came back to Marie. He bent over her, but he did not touch her.

He spoke her name gently.