e been totally wrong with regard to you two? I was so
sure you'd more than like each other--I even thought it quite possible
that Micky might fall in love with you--you're so exactly suited to
him."

"I'm glad you think so," said Esther drily. "I'm sorry I can't oblige
you by agreeing."

June said "Humph!" She yawned. "All the same," she added after a
moment, "I'm convinced that things would have been different if it
hadn't been for that phantom lover of yours; you're so crazy about
him." There was a touch of exasperation in her voice.

Esther flushed angrily.

"It's absurd of you to talk like this," she said. "Mr. Mellowes is the
last man on earth I should ever have looked at, even supposing
Raymond...." She had spoken the name before she was aware of it; in
her momentary flash of temper the secret she had so carefully guarded
escaped her.

It was too late to attempt to cover what she had said; she knew by the
sudden expression of June's face that she had heard.

There was a poignant silence, then June sat up with a little jerk.

"Of course, that's let the cat out of the bag," she said curtly. "And
you let me run him down! How mean, how unutterably mean of you,
Esther!... I can't think now why I never guessed! Raymond Ashton!"

Esther had flushed scarlet.

"I never said that was his name," she tried to defend herself. "It's
purely your imagination. And even supposing it is, do you think I mind
what you say about him, or Mr. Mellowes either? Neither of you know
him as I do, or you would never say such cruel, wicked things." She
stopped with a sob in her voice.

"Then it is Raymond Ashton?" June said gently. She got up and came
over to where Esther was sitting. "Oh, I am sorry I said anything
about him!" she cried impulsively. "You ought to have stopped me. How
on earth was I to know?"

"I don't care what you said; it's all untrue," Esther protested
stormily. "Nothing you could ever say about him would influence me or
make me feel any differently."

June got up for a cigarette; when she was nonplussed she invariably
had to smoke; she took several agitated puffs before she looked at her
friend again.

"Well, anything I said was in absolute innocence, you know that," she
said in distress. "I'd no more idea than the dead that you and he....
So that's why he doesn't want you to go to his mother?"

"He doesn't know; I never told him it was to Mrs. Ashton's--I just
said I had had an offer of a berth. I suppo