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 stood on the threshold hesitatingly, then she spoke. "May I come in?" June Mason looked up with an exaggerated start; she was a picturesque figure at that moment in a big white overall, and with a scarf of her favourite mauve tied over her dark head. She held a little phial in either hand, and there was a delicious faint smell of rose perfume in the room. "You!" she said. "Gracious! I thought you were dead and buried long enough ago. Oh yes, come in.... You don't mind me going on with my work, do you? I'm up to my eyes in it.... Sit down." But Esther stood where she was, the eagerness died out of her pretty face. "I won't stay if you're busy," she said. "I'll come another time, but----" she hesitated. Across the room the eyes of the two girls met, and June Mason promptly put down the two little phials. "Come in and apologise, and so will I," she said heartily. "There!" She reached up--Esther was taller than she--and gave the younger girl a sounding kiss. "There! I don't often kiss people, so you can consider yourself flattered." She dragged forward a chair and pushed Esther into it. "Now, what do you want, and where's that Charlie? You've no idea how I've missed him. No--you stay there, and I'll go and fetch him up."