you talking about?"

"Esther's beloved," June said airily. "She won't tell me his name, so
I call him the phantom lover, because I've got an eerie sort of
feeling in my mind about him that he doesn't really exist. What do you
think, Micky?"

"My dear girl, how can I possibly know?"

June produced some cigarettes.

"If he were all that she'd like me to believe he is," she said
shrewdly, "she'd tell me more about him. She certainly got a bit more
confidential to-day, and said that he had a cat for a mother and a few
things like that. She had another letter from him this morning; he's
in Paris--on business, so he tells her." She laughed, turning her face
for a moment against the mauve cushion. Suddenly she sat upright
again, "Micky, I should hate that man if I knew him!"

Micky smiled.

"Another of your 'instinctive hates'?" he asked whimsically.

She nodded.

"I know you don't believe in them, but...."

"Don't I?" said Micky thoughtfully. "I'm not so sure." He looked at
his watch. "Well, I must be trotting. There's nothing else I can do
for you, I suppose? No more waifs who want billets...?"

"You're laughing at me."

"I'm not--I never laugh at you." He laid his hand on her shoulder for
a moment. "Don't bother to get up; you look so comfortable ...
Good-bye----"

"Good-bye--and, Micky, don't make up your mind not to like Esther just
because of this afternoon."

"My dear, I never thought of such a thing," he protested lamely.

June snuggled more cosily into the cushions.

"Ah, but I know what you are," she said, for once hopelessly on the
wrong track.

Micky laughed to himself as he went down the stairs; he wondered if he
was getting clever, or if June was not so quick to see a thing as he
had believed, that she had not noticed the constraint between himself
and Esther.

He looked about him eagerly as he went out, hoping to catch a
glimpse of Esther, but the house seemed deserted, quite different from
what he had pictured it to be. He had always thought that a London
boarding-house must be noisy and crowded and perpetually smelling of
soap and cabbage water; he was relieved to find that this was
fairly comfortable and quiet.

He picked up a taxicab at the corner of the road and was driven back
to his flat. He felt very depressed. Everybody seemed to have
interests in life except himself. He wished he had got married years
ago and settled down. He thought of Marie Deland with remorseful
affection.