forced
lightness. "No coffee--or tea? It's cold out this morning. If you
would care for anything, my man would bring it at once."

She laughed and shook her head.

"I don't want anything, thank you." She looked round at Micky's
luxuriously furnished room. "Isn't it beautiful?" she asked him.

He smiled. "Do you like it? I am glad."

"I think it's lovely." She looked up at him. "I seem to have been
climbing a ladder lately," she said. "Since I left that awful place in
the Brixton Road--where I am now is heaps better than that was, but
this----"

Micky was silent. It trembled on his lips to say that everything he
had in the world was hers if only she would take it, but he knew the
utter futility of it. Money and possessions counted very little with
her. She would not have minded the house in the Brixton Road at all
with the man she loved.

He went downstairs with her.

"So we're really friends now?" he said when he bade her good-bye. "And
you'll promise to let me advise you again when you're not quite sure
what you ought to do?" There was a note of anxiety in his voice.

She flushed nervously.

"It's kind of you to be interested." It seemed strange to her that
after all that had happened they should have so easily got back to
their old footing of friendliness. But Micky was not at all happy.
When she had gone he stood for a long time at the window staring
moodily out.

When Driver brought lunch, he found Micky poring over a Bradshaw; he
spoke to the man with elaborate carelessness.

"You'll have to take another trip to Paris--to-morrow will do."

"Yes sir." Driver smoothed a crease in the cloth. "To post another
letter, sir?" he asked expressionlessly.

Micky looked up sharply, but Driver met his eyes innocently.

Micky coloured.

"No; it isn't a letter this time," he said. "It's to buy a fur coat."

CHAPTER XXI

"The phantom lover," said June Mason lugubriously, "is certainly
turning up trumps."

It was a week later, and she was giving Micky tea.

Esther was out. She knew now that it was to see Esther he came. She
was quite reconciled to the fact, and had got over her first pang of
jealousy, but Esther's indifference to him enraged her.

"Can't the girl see what she's throwing away?" she asked herself
furiously. "What on earth is she made of that she can't see what's
waiting for her to take? If Micky had adored me as he adores her ...
well--my name wouldn't have been June Mason to-day.