The Phantom Lover Part 53

"What a question! How do I know? I've never even thought about it."

"Haven't you?" said Micky. "I have, crowds of times. I've worked it all out to a nicety. I shall have a house in London and a place in the country as well, so that if my wife doesn't like town we can divide our time and stay six months at each."

"We are not all rich like you are, you know," Esther said drily. "I dare say when I get married--if I ever do--I shall just have a little flat somewhere and stay there for the rest of my life, and be very happy too," she added with a sort of defiance.

"Yes," said Micky after a moment. "I think I could be very happy in a flat, too, for the rest of my life--with the right woman." He looked down at her, smiling thoughtfully "The only trouble is, that I shall probably have to marry the wrong one."

"If you do, it will be your own fault, I should think," said Esther, laughing. She could not quite understand this man. Had he ever really loved her, or had it all just been a pretence?

"No," said Micky promptly. "I think it will be your fault."

Esther raised her eyes slowly. Micky was smiling.

"Yes, I mean it," he said seriously. "The first time I ever saw you I thought to myself, 'Here she is! That right woman I've been waiting for all my life'--but, of course, you didn't think I was the right man, and so that ended it," he added philosophically.

Esther did not like to hear him speak so lightly. She would have been surprised if she could have known the desperate unhappiness in his heart, the bitterness that drove him to speak so flippantly of all that he held best and dearest.

She made no attempt to answer him, and presently he said again with change of voice--

"Are you hungry, I wonder? Because I am! And I've got a firm conviction that we're coming to a wayside inn. Do you see the chimneys through the trees?..."

He slowed the car a little.

"There's another car outside--what do you say? Shall we risk it?"

"It would be rather nice," Esther admitted. She was feeling cold; she was rather glad when the car stopped and Micky gave her his hand.

"They've got a fire anyway," he said cheerily. "I saw it through the window, and we'll ask for some coffee."

He led the way into the parlour. Two men wrapped in heavy coats stood by the fire; they moved to make way for Esther. After a moment they went out of the room, and she saw them in the road bending over the car next to Micky's.

"We can have coffee and buns," Micky said, coming back after a moment.

"I don't know what they'll be like, but----"

"I shall enjoy them anyway," she told him. "I really am hungry."

He pulled off his gloves and dragged a chair up to the fire for her.

"This is fine," he said. "Have you ever thought what a novelty a honeymoon would be touring through villages like this? I should like to just start away and go on driving for miles and miles, just staying anywhere and getting meals anyhow."

Esther laughed. "I should have thought it was just the sort of thing you would hate," she said.

"That's where you're mistaken," he told her. "I live in town and in the way I do because people expect it of me, and I'm too lazy to bother to change. It's not a bit the life I should choose if I had my way. I hate dressing for dinner, and wading through six or seven courses, and being bored stiff half the time by some dressed-up woman beside me...."

He looked at her with a comical expression.

Esther leaned her chin in her hand and raised serious eyes to his face.

"Well, how would you really like to live, then?" she asked.

Micky sat down on the edge of the table and stuck his long legs out before him. He kept his eyes fixed on his boots as he answered--

"Well, I should like a place in the country, as I said, and a garden--a ripping garden, with lots of roses and gra.s.s--walks like you see in old-fas.h.i.+oned pictures, and a high box hedge--that's one of the things I simply must have! Have you ever smelt a box hedge after a hot sun has been on it? No? well, you ought to; it's fine!"

He paused reflectively.

"I should like to look after the roses myself, I think," he went on presently. "I dare say I should make a mess of it, but I should like to have a try, anyway. And I should like to keep lots of animals, horses and dogs and chickens. Do you know"--he half turned to her--"I've always had a fancy for great Danes--you can't keep 'em in town, only in the country. Some people I once stayed with down in Lincoln had a couple--ripping dogs they were--almost as big as ponies, and they used to let the kids play with them and pull them about. Old Lancing had a boy, you know--a ripping little kid of five--a real sport he was, too--Uncle Micky he used to call me." Micky chuckled reminiscently. "It must be jolly fine to have a youngster of your own like that," he added.

This was a new Micky, indeed! Esther watched him with fascinated eyes.

She had not known that he was fond of children; she had taken it for granted that men hardly ever were. She supposed drearily that she had got that idea from Raymond. He had always said he would not stand "kids." It was odd that, though Micky had used the same word, it had sounded somehow quite different when he said it.

Micky raised his eyes suddenly. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

She shook her head; her lip quivered a little.

Micky half rose to go to her, when the two men who owned the second car came back into the room again. Micky turned on his heel.

"I suppose we ought to be getting on," he said constrainedly. "I'll go and start up; you stay here."

He went out, leaving Esther by the fire.

Her thoughts were a little confused. What had he been going to say, she wondered. It seemed hardly possible that she had really had that little glimpse of the other Micky whom she had never seen before; the Micky who was not at all a man about town, but just an ordinary person who thought it must be fine to have a home in the country and lots of roses and a little son of his own.

The two men behind her were talking together; one of them was laughing a good deal in a sneering way.

"She must be a fool, you know," he said drily. "I'm surprised at any woman being caught like that. It was only her money he was after, of course."

"I've never seen her myself," the other said disinterestedly--he sounded rather bored--"and I only know him slightly. You met them in Paris, you say?"

"Yes--last week." There was the sound of a match being struck and a little pause while he puffed at a cigarette.

Esther turned in her chair; it was odd how the mention of Paris always seemed to grip her heart. She looked at the two men, but they were both strangers to her.

"Perhaps he won't really marry her," the elder one said yawning.

"There's many a slip you know, and from what I know of Raymond Ashton----" He shrugged his shoulders eloquently.

The girl by the fire sat very still. She was staring at the two men with piteous grey eyes; she felt as if all the blood in her body had ebbed to her heart, where it was hammering enough to kill her.

Like some one in a dream she heard the laugh the other man gave----

"Not marry her! My dear boy, he must! It's his last chance, and he knows it! He's up to his neck in debt and borrowed money. As a matter of fact, I shouldn't be at all surprised if Tubby Clare's little widow hasn't already changed her name for Raymond Ashton's."

CHAPTER XXV

Outside in the road Micky suddenly started up the engine of his car.