The Phantom Lover Part 76

June turned to the door.

"I'll go away--you don't want me.... I'll go----" but Esther caught her hand.

"No--no.... Wait! please wait!"

"Very well--but I'm half frozen...." June looked plaintively at Esther, but Esther had forgotten her, and she dragged the quilt from the bed, and wrapped it round her small figure till she looked like a mummy.

There was a long silence, then Esther raised her eyes to June's anxious face.

Her own was quite colourless, and her grey eyes looked dazed.

"Will you--will you--read it?" she said faintly. "Please--I want you to--I ... somehow I feel as if I'm dreaming."

But June at any rate was wide awake. It only took her two minutes to read Micky's pa.s.sionate appeal; the next she was laughing and crying together, and hugging Esther boisterously.

"Oh, isn't he the most wonderful man? Don't you love him? Don't you just adore him? Oh, if you're going to break his heart after all this, I'll _never_ forgive you!... Why, my George isn't in it with Micky, poor darling!"--she shook Esther in her excitement--"What are you made of, that you can't see what a king he is? I don't believe there's any blood in your veins at all," she declared indignantly. "You haven't got a heart.... Oh, Esther darling! I didn't mean it--I--oh, I'm such an idiot!..."

And the two girls clasped each other and cried together.

"And now if this ridiculous midnight scene is ended," June said presently, sniffing her tears away, "let's talk sense. I'll go and see Micky in the morning and explain everything. He knows what I am--he won't be at all surprised--oh, I'm so glad--so more than glad.... Oh, Esther, _why_ do you hide your face?"

"Because I'm so ashamed," Esther said in a stifled voice. "I'm not worth loving--I've ... oh, you don't _know_ how I've treated him!"

June was silent for a minute, then she said gently--

"But Micky will forget all that--Micky never remembered a mean thing against anybody in his life." She forced Esther to look at her. "Tell me one thing, and then I'll go and leave you in peace," she coaxed.

"Do you--do you ... _you_ know?"

But in this instance, at least, a verbal answer was not necessary.

June kissed her rapturously.

"Oh, you darling," she said. She blew out the candle, and sped down to her own room again like a ghost in the moonlight.

"Was there anything else you was wanting, sir?" Driver inquired stolidly. He stood on the platform looking in at the first-cla.s.s compartment where Micky sat alone in durance vile, waiting for the train to start.

He frowned, and pulled his soft hat further down over his eyes as he answered--

"No, nothing.... I'll see you at Dover."

There were many people on the platform; in the next carriage a pretty girl was seeing a man off--looking up at him as he stood on the footboard with eyes that told their story eloquently.

Micky looked at her enviously. He would have given his right hand if there had been some one there to see him off with just that expression in her eyes--the right some one, of course. He turned away from the window with an uncomfortable lump in his throat.

He had nothing in the world but his confounded money, and a lot of good that was to him! It could not buy happiness.

The guard came down the platform--

"Take your seats--take your seats...."

A girl and a man pushed past him. The girl was staring eagerly in at all the windows as she pa.s.sed. When she saw Micky she gave a little cry of relief.

"Here he is--Micky! Micky!"

Micky started to his feet.

"June!" he said. For a moment he thought something must have happened--something was wrong--Esther!... her name was trembling on his lips, but June rushed on impetuously before he had time to speak it.

"We thought we'd come and see you off--George told me you were going, and I guessed you'd be on this train.... I'm so glad we found you--it's rotten seeing oneself off, isn't it?..."

Rochester came up laughing and red in the face; he took off his hat and mopped his hot forehead.

"I can't keep pace with her, she's like a whirlwind," he said whimsically. "She raced me off here before I could say a word."

"It's kind of you to come," Micky said.

He was pleased to see them; he felt decidedly less ill-tempered than he had done a moment ago. He looked down at June's radiant face, and a little doubt went through his heart.

He was in that dangerous state through which so many men have to pa.s.s when the woman they love will have none of them. If Marie Deland had happened to turn up then, he would have asked for forgiveness and have married her offhand and regretted it the next day; and now, as he looked at June, he wondered if he had been a fool not to properly appreciate her. He felt a vague twinge of jealousy, realising that the days were gone for ever when he had been the most wonderful man in all the world to her.

He had never loved her save in a brotherly way, and he did not love her now, but at heart men are all dogs in the manger, and it was some such feeling that filled Micky's heart as he leaned out of the window and looked at this girl.

"I hope you'll have a good time," she said cheerily. "Have you got anything to read?"

"I shan't want anything--I'm not in a reading mood."

Micky was longing to ask about Esther, but pride prevented him.

The guard was blowing his whistle; doors were slamming; June gripped Micky's hand.

"Be a good boy, and have a good time," she said. There was a furious excitement in her eyes.

He made a grimace.

"I'm not expecting to have a good time," he answered.

The train was slowly moving; June ran a few steps to keep up with it.

Micky blurted out his question at last--

"Miss Shepstone ... Esther ... is she all right, June?"

June smiled.

"Oh, she's first rate," she said airily. "She's gone away for a holiday.... Good-bye." She fell back laughing and waving her hand.

Micky kept his head out of the window till a cloud of smoke from the engine blown backwards shut out all sight of her, then he drew in, dragging the window up with a slam.