ome very soon now...."

"Oh!" said June chagrined. "And then, of course, you'll be married and
live happily ever after...."

"Yes," said Esther. "I hope so."

June opened her eyes.

Charlie, curled up on his cushion, started to purr lazily. Presently
June flopped down on her knees beside him and began stroking his
head.

"You'll let me have Charlie when you're married, won't you?" she said
suddenly. "I am sure the phantom lover won't want him."

Esther did not answer; she hated herself for remembering that Raymond
had once said he loathed cats.

"I told you how Micky went into a pond after a drowning kitten, didn't
I?" June asked reminiscently. "I should have loved him for that alone,
if for nothing else...."

Esther made no comment. She moved a little, and the letter slipped
from her lap to the floor.

June picked it up.

"Or is it sacrilege to touch it?" she asked teasingly. She laid it on
Esther's lap.

"Well, I couldn't help seeing the writing," she said, after a
moment. "And, do you know, it's awfully like Micky's! If I hadn't
known it wasn't his I should have declared it was," she said rather
disconnectedly.

Esther grabbed the letter up.

"Well, it isn't his, anyway," she said sharply.

June laughed.

CHAPTER XVIII

Esther wrote to Mrs. Ashton that same night and told her she must
regretfully decline the offered position; she gave no reason, but she
permitted herself a little sigh of regret when the letter was
dispatched.

She would like to have gone; she would like to have seen Raymond's
home and to have got to know his mother, but it was his wish that she
should not go.

She tried to believe that she was happy in the knowledge of his love,
but in her heart she knew that she was restless and dissatisfied.

"If I had something to do I should be ever so much happier," she told
June again and again, and June quite agreed.

"It must be awful, killing time," she said. "When I think of the life
I used to lead at home before I started trying to improve people's
complexions, I wonder I didn't go mad. Nothing but silly tea-parties
and scandal.... Ugh! But all the same Micky and I agreed that you
wouldn't like being at Mrs. Ashton's."

"Micky!" said Esther scornfully. "As if I care what he thinks...."

June looked mildly amazed.

"Oh, all right," she said smoothly. "I suppose I may mention his name
sometimes, mayn't I?" She began to laugh. "Do you know that for once
in my life I'v