received your note in reply to my letter
and cannot help saying that I feel very hurt at your decided
refusal to allow me to take you out. I thought we were to be
friends? Have I been so unfortunate as to offend you? If so, I can
only assure you that it has been utterly unintentional. Won't you
let me see you, if only for a moment? I will meet you at any time
or place.-- Yours sincerely, MICKEY
MELLOWES."

He gave a dissatisfied growl as he finished reading it. Not a very
eloquent epistle. There was so much more which he wanted to say, but
did not dare to. He folded it again and thrust it into an envelope;
then he addressed it and laid it beside that other on his desk,
comparing the two handwritings with complacence.

Not in the least alike! Nobody would ever suspect that they had been
written by the same person.

He rang for Driver and gave him the unstamped envelope. "This is what
I want you to post in Paris. Mind you put enough stamps on. You'd
better have it weighed."

"Yes, sir." Driver looked at the other letter. "And--is that for the
post too, sir?"

Micky put his hand behind him with a guilty gesture.

"No; I'll post that myself," he said, and he went out then and there
into the cold night and did so.

As it dropped into the letter-box Micky looked up at the stars and
sighed.

What the dickens could he have done to make her so distant? At any
rate he would let her see that he was not to be so easily snubbed. If
she didn't answer his letter he would go boldly round to Elphinstone
Road, and stay there till he saw her.

He was half way to bed before he remembered that he had promised to go
to the Delands that evening. He stopped short with his necktie half
undone and swore.

What the deuce would they think of him?

Well, he would have to plead that headache still, that was all, and if
Marie chose to cut up rough.... Micky felt mean because he rather
hoped that she would. He knew that he wanted their friendship to
cease, but, man-like, he did not altogether like having to take the
initiative. Marie was a nice little girl, and if it hadn't been for
that relative of hers dying on New Year's Eve--well, he would probably
have been engaged to her by this time.

He went to bed feeling miserable.

Driver had just left the house to catch the boat train the following
morning when June Mason rang Micky up.

"Any news for me?" she demanded. "I hate worrying you so s