p and snatched up a paper fan from the table.
Micky sat down between the two girls.

"Miss Shepstone didn't want to see Mrs. Ashton, I rather fancy," he
said coolly. He looked at Esther with a slight smile in his eyes. "I
believe she was afraid Mrs. Ashton would demand a reason for having
had her kind offer so cavalierly refused," he went on banteringly.

Esther laughed.

"Yes, I believe I was," she admitted. "I'm an awful coward over
explaining things to people."

"So am I," said Micky drily. He was wondering how he was ever going to
explain the most difficult occurrence of his whole life, and if, when
he had done so, it would ever be believed.

He looked at Esther a great deal during dinner; he had never seen her
so animated; her eyes were sparkling, and her cheeks were flushed; she
talked a great deal, and was particularly friendly to him; he was
quite sorry when it was time to go on to the theatre.

As they left the restaurant he noticed that she kept close to him
again, and that she looked anxiously round for Mrs. Ashton.

"It's all right," he said. "She's upstairs in the gallery."

She smiled. She thought he was very quick to understand her. Raymond
had never seemed to understand things without an explanation. She
wished he had been rather more like Micky in some ways; she
wished--she looked up at Micky guiltily; how could she compare the two
men?--the one whom she loved, and the other whom she did not even
like!

They were late, and the curtain had risen when they were shown into
their seats. The theatre was dark, and Esther could hardly see her
way. She put out her hand with a smothered laugh and felt for Micky's.
"I can't see," she said.

His fingers closed about hers; such a little hand it felt. He wondered
why she was being so kind to him to-night. He did not realise that she
was enjoying herself so much that she felt on good terms with the
whole world.

Esther sat between him and June, and Micky hardly looked at the stage
at all. His eyes turned again and again to her rapt face and the
eagerness of her eyes.

She had been to theatres lots of times, so she told him in a whisper,
but never in the stalls before. She asked him if he didn't like some
of the frocks worn by the people close by.

Micky's eyes flashed.

"Not so well as yours," he said.

She drew away from him a little, and he wished he had not said it. In
that one moment he felt that he had broken down all the friendliness
she ha