rning, sir, but we had a rough crossing,
and I was ill----"

Micky smiled.

"Poor old Driver!--anything else?"

"Yes, sir--I met Mr. Ashton in Paris. He seemed very surprised to see
me there without you, sir."

Micky's face changed; he had not counted on this.

"Good Lord!" he said. "You didn't tell him you----?"

Driver raised his eyes.

"I never tell anybody anything, sir," he said woodenly.

Micky breathed a sigh of relief.

"Good man.... He was alone, of course?"

"Alone at the hotel, but I saw him out driving twice with the same
lady, sir."

"You saw him out twice--driving with the same lady?" Micky echoed the
man's words vaguely. "All right--you can go."

"Thank you, sir." Driver departed, closing the door noiselessly.

Ashton had soon found consolation, Micky thought savagely. He wondered
what Esther would say if she could know. What was Driver thinking
about it all? Driver was safe as the Bank of England; but, all the
same, it was not altogether pleasant to feel that he had had to give
himself away to his valet.

He looked up at the clock. Past nine! So there would not be another
post in to-night.

Esther had not answered his note, and two whole days had elapsed.

Micky began pacing the room. Why had she so suddenly thrown him over,
he wondered miserably.

He could not imagine what he had done to offend her.

He hardly knew how the days had passed since New Year's Eve. He had
not visited any of his old haunts or seen any of his friends. It
almost seemed as if he had opened the book of a new life and forgotten
about the old.

She might have answered his letter. Dash it all! he wasn't just a
bounder who had spoken to her for his own amusement. He kicked a
hassock out of his way and went to bed.

If he didn't hear in the morning, he would risk it and go round to see
her. At the worst she could only have the door shut in his face....

"And even then----" he told his reflection in the mirror fiercely, as
he struggled with a stud. "Even then I'm not done--and I'll show her
that I'm not...."

* * * * *

June Mason was mixing perfume the following morning when a little
knock came at her door.

She looked up from her work and listened; after a second she resumed
her occupation briskly.

"Come in," she said.

She did not raise her eyes when the door opened, though she knew quite
well who had entered the room, and for a second Esther Shepstone st