"Well I do. I hope you're not shocked. I find it's so soothing when you've got nerves; and I'm a frightfully nervy person. I am hardly ever still; I'm always on the go." Esther could well believe it. She looked on with a slightly dazed feeling while June Mason lit a cigarette and bustled about the room. It was a very comfortable room, with plenty of easy-chairs and lots of cushions all in the same pale shade of mauve. "I didn't think there would be any rooms as comfortable as this in the house," Esther said. "I suppose you pay a great deal for it, though." "I don't know about that. Most of the furniture is mine and all the cushions. Do you like my cushions?" She put down the teapot, which she had been about to fill, and caught up one of the cushions, plumping its softness together with her white hands. "Mauve is my lucky colour," she rattled on. "Everything I do in mauve turns out well. But perhaps you don't believe in a superstition like that?" Esther was rather bewildered. "I'm not sure. I never thought about it," she said hesitatingly. "But it's a very pretty colour." Miss Mason dropped the cushion to the floor, and stooping picked Charlie up and deposited him on it. "Doesn't he look sweet?" she demanded. "And a black cat is lucky too, you know, so that's a comfort." She went back to the teapot, made the tea, and poured out a cup for Esther. "Is that chair comfy?--yes, lean back! What are you looking at? Oh, my photographs! Yes. I have got a lot, haven't I? Lydia dusts them for me! Lydia's a treasure! You'll love her. When I get married she's going to leave here and come with me----" Esther looked interested. "Are you going to be married?" she asked. Miss Mason laughed. "Am I? No, I'm not. I'm too fond of my independence. Not that I don't like men. I do like them, and I've got some awfully good pals amongst them, too. Look!" She turned with one of her rapid movements, caught up a photograph from the shelf and handed it to Esther. "There! that's one of the nicest men I ever met in my life," she said enthusiastically. "Don't you think he's got a ripping face?" Esther took the portrait laughingly--she thought June Mason one of the most amusing people she had ever met--then she caught her breath on a little smothered exclamation as she found herself looking straight into the pictured eyes of Micky Mellowes. June Mason was too occupied with a fresh cigarette to notice the blank look that filled Esther's eyes. She sat there in the big chair, staring at Micky's portrait with a sense of foreboding. Surely it was something bigger than just chance that had introduced him into her life for the second time. "He's one of the best," June Mason went on. She dragged forward another chair and plumped down into it comfortably. "Don't you admire him?" She opened her eyes wide, looking across at Esther.