The Phantom Lover Part 77

Gone away for a holiday, had she?--well--it was nothing to him. He turned round to go back to his seat in the corner then stopping dead, staring as if he had seen a ghost; for Esther was sitting there just behind him, looking up at him with scared eyes.

For a moment Micky did not move; he was like a man turned to stone.

Then the blood rushed to his face in a crimson tide; he broke out into stammering speech--

"You ... you ... what ... what ... I thought...." He swayed forward a little and caught her hands. "You are real--I thought ... I thought I was just imagining it all; I thought.... Oh, wait a moment...." He sat down and leaned his head in his hands.

He felt sure that he must be mad or dreaming--the world had turned upside down and pitched his thoughts into chaos; he was sure that when next he looked Esther would no longer be there--he dreaded having to raise his eyes.

Esther stretched a timid hand to him; her voice shook as she said--

"Oh, I thought ... I thought perhaps you'd be glad to see me--just ...

just a little--glad...."

"Glad!" Micky echoed the word with almost a shout. He got up and went over to her; he looked down at her with an agony of doubt and fear in his eyes.

"Why have you come?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely. "If this is only a joke--if it's any nonsense of June's ... by G.o.d, it's the cruellest joke you could have played on me.... I--I...."

Esther covered her face with her hands.

"If that's all you've got to say to me," she began tremblingly.

"Esther...."

He drew her hands down; he forced her to look at him; for a long moment his eyes searched her face disbelievingly, not daring to hope....

Her cheeks flamed, but she met his eyes bravely.

Micky drew a long breath; he pa.s.sed a hand across his eyes as if to waken himself.

Then all at once he seemed to realise that this was in very truth the woman he wanted sitting beside him; that she was here and for his sake; that he was alone and unhappy no longer; and that after all the weeks of hunger and restlessness he had got his heart's desire.

He looked down at her tremulous face with eyes of pa.s.sionate tenderness.

"Is this my wife?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely, and Esther answered--

"If you still want me."

"Want you!" Micky caught her to him. "Haven't I always wanted you?..."

Fortunately the train was not very full, and the corridor immediately outside their carriage was deserted, or somebody might have had a very interesting demonstration of how to kiss a woman who had refused for months to be kissed.

Micky was like a boy in his happiness. He looked years younger than the gloomy man who had dismissed Driver ten minutes since. He could not take his eyes from Esther--he could not believe in his own happiness even while he was engulfed in it. His arm was round her, regardless of chance wanderers in the corridor--he held her hand to his lips and kissed it pa.s.sionately.

"What have you done with ... that other ring you used to wear?" he asked jealously.

She turned her face away.

"I threw it out of the window when we came back from Paris," she told him.

"I'll give you another. I'm going to give you everything you want now."

"You've been too good to me already," she said. "I can never repay you."

"You've given me yourself. There is nothing else in the world that I want."

He laughed happily.

He bent his head towards her.

"Esther ... when did you ... when did you first ... think that you liked me ... just a little?"

Her head dropped; he could not see her face.

"I don't know," she said in a whisper.

"In Paris," he urged, "or before? Tell me."

"I think it was in Paris--after ... after I saw ... Raymond! You were so kind ... so different."

He laughed ruefully.

"I was nearer hating you then than ever in my life."

He saw the colour creep into her face. "You've told me ever so many times that you hated me," he went on quickly, "but you never told me that you ... loved me, Esther!"

He waited, but she did not look at him.

Then suddenly she took his hand in both of hers; she bent her head and kissed it with a sort of pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude that brought a mist to Micky's eyes. He seemed to see her all at once as he had first seen her that New Year's Eve; alone, unhappy--with n.o.body to care what she did, or what became of her.

"You're so much, much too good for me," she said brokenly. "You've done everything for me, and I've done nothing for you--I haven't even been ... nice! I can't tell you what I feel about it all--I only know that--just lately--you've--you've made everything seem so different--since you wrote me that letter--it makes me feel in my heart that it's always really been you--always you, and never ...

never any one else."

"Darling," said Micky huskily. "And perhaps--some day--do you ... do you ... think ... you could ever care for me more than ... than you cared for ... that other fellow, confound him!" he added fiercely.

She looked up at him and smiled.

"I think," she said slowly, "that I only ... only really began to care for--him--when he went away--and when those letters began to come; and so you see--it was always you, because it was you who wrote them."

"It was a rotten thing to do, but I wanted to help you."

"You did help me ... and--Micky...."

"Darling...."

"My fur coat ... can I--will you give it back to me?"

"I'll give you everything in the world if you'll say you love me...."