The crowd was moving again now; a second, and Raymond and his mother were lost to sight. Micky had slipped an arm round Esther; he was white to the lips. He knew now how near he had been to discovery and the wreck of all his hopes. He tried to pretend that he did not understand the cause of her agitation. He looked down at her. "Better now you're in the air?" he asked. "It was hot in the theatre. I--Esther----" She had swung heavily against him, and looking down in sudden alarm, Micky saw that she had fainted. CHAPTER XX Looking back to that night at the theatre it always seemed to June Mason that she had been most extraordinarily blind in not seeing before that it was Esther for whom Micky Mellowes cared. One glance at his face as he lifted the girl in his arms told her more than any words would have done; there was a sort of indescribable rage and pain in his eyes as he looked down at the white face lying against his shoulder. People gathered about them, curious and sympathetic. June heard some one say that it had been so "deuced hot in the theatre, no wonder people fainted," but she knew all the time that it was nothing to do with the heat; she stooped mechanically and picked up Esther's gloves which had fallen from her nerveless hand before she followed Micky back into the foyer, where he laid Esther down on one of the long velvet lounges. Afterwards she realised that the sudden discovery that Micky loved her friend had been something of a shock to her, that she had even been faintly jealous; she did not want to marry him herself, and yet they had been such good friends, it gave her an odd little pain to think that there was somebody else whom he placed a long way ahead of her in his heart. Most of the people had gone, one or two of the theatre attendants lingered; it seemed a long time before Esther opened her eyes. She lay for a moment, looking vaguely about her, then her eyes came back to Micky, who was bending over her, his face scarcely less white than her own. She made an effort to lift herself from his arm; then quite suddenly she burst into tears. The little sound of sobbing broke the spell that seemed, to have held June; she went down on her knees beside her, both arms round the slender, shaking figure. Micky had risen to his feet. June glanced up at him. "Go and find the taxi and leave her to me," she said sharply. The look of suffering in his face hurt her. Micky went out into the cold night bareheaded. He hardly knew what he was doing. He stood for some minutes on the path forgetting why he had come out at all, before some one, jostling against him, brought him back to a sense of time and place. He went down the road to look for a taxi. When he came back Esther was sitting up, wrapped in her cloak. She was not crying now, but she looked like a child who wants to cry but is determined not to. June was standing beside her.