The Phantom Lover Part 20

June laughed.

"Don't you take things so literally, my dear," she said. "I know you don't like Micky, though you've never seen him, but I'm going to ask him here to tea one day, if he'll come----"

"I don't suppose he will," said Esther. "Elphinstone Road wouldn't be good enough for him, would it?"

June frowned.

"I don't like to hear you talk like that about Micky! It's not fair, when you don't know him. I tell you he's one of the best--and, anyway, as he's a friend of mine----"

Esther flushed.

"I'm sorry--I'd no right to have said anything about him at all; please forgive me."

"Oh, it's all right," June said laconically. "But he isn't a bit of a sn.o.b; he'd do anything in the world for anybody."

Esther glanced up at his portrait on the shelf. She felt a trifle ashamed of what she had said; after all, Micky had been good to her in his own way, even if his own way had been patronising.

"And so I shall stay on here," she said, after a moment. "And if you think you would still like me to share this room----"

June pounced upon her.

"You darling! It's too good to be true. Of course, I should love it!

I'll go and tell old Mother Elders straight away; it will put her in a good temper for a month."

"She's out," Esther said quickly. "I went to tell her myself as soon as I got my letter.... It only came this morning." She coloured sensitively beneath June's quizzical eyes.

"And of course you've been devouring it ever since," June said. "Well, and very nice too! There's nothing to be ashamed of. I'll admit that I didn't think somehow that he could be a very nice sort of person, this young man of yours. No, I don't know why I thought so--just an idea of mine. I get hold of ideas like that. But I've changed my mind now; I'm sure he's a dear, or you'd never look so happy."

"I should love you to see him," Esther said with enthusiasm. "I'm sure you would like him. I don't know his people, of course--I suppose if they thought he cared for me they'd be angry--but it doesn't really matter, and I know he doesn't care at all for his mother...."

June looked up from stroking Charlie.

"Now, I wish you hadn't said that," she said frankly. "No man can be really nice who doesn't love his own mother."

Esther looked distressed.

"But she's horrid!" she said eagerly. "He has told me how horrid she is to him--really she is--and as he's her only son----" She stopped.

"After all," she went on, "there's no law to make you like a woman just because you happen to be her son, is there?"

"It's unnatural not to," June answered shortly. "However, as neither of us know his mother, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. She may be a perfect old cat. Some women are."

She wandered round the room to find a cigarette, and Esther sat looking into the fire.

She could not remember her own mother. But somehow she felt sure that, had she been living, she would have adored her.

She had never heard Raymond say anything nice of Mrs. Ashton--he had always spoken about her in a bitter, half sneering way.

She looked across to June timidly.

"Do you always judge people by what you call 'instinct'?" she asked.

"When I first knew you you told me that you felt sure you would like me before ever you saw me, and----"

"And I was right," June said triumphantly. "I nearly always am right when I get an instinct about anything. Micky says it's all rot!--there I am, talking about him again--it's a habit, so don't notice it! But even he has to admit how often I am right; I could give you dozens of instances."

Esther did not pursue the subject; she was remembering how June had said that she had an "instinct" that Raymond was not nice.

"I think you're the most original person I've ever met," she said with a little smile.

June laughed.

"Eccentric, Micky says I am----" she answered, then broke off with a comical look of despair. "You really must excuse me for everlastingly dragging him in," she apologised. "As I said before, it's a habit--and there goes the dinner gong. Are we going to feed here to-day?"

Esther rose from the chair.

"I am," she said. "And I'm hungry, so I do hope there's something nice."

They went down together.

"Curry," said June, sniffing the air critically. "The colonel will be pleased; he's always telling us how they used to make curry in India, poor old chap! Though I don't think any of us really believe that he's ever been there."

But the colonel was not there.

"He's ill," so young Harley told the two girls as they sat down at their table. "I went up to see him this morning, and he really looks ill."

"You don't look in exactly rude health yourself," said June in her blunt fas.h.i.+on. She noticed that Harley looked at Esther a great deal, and she made up her mind to tell him at the earliest opportunity that Esther was engaged. June scented romance everywhere.

"They are the first violets I have seen this year," Esther was saying, looking at a little bunch the young man wore in his coat.

He took them out eagerly and laid them down beside her plate.

"Do have them, will you? I never wear flowers really, but a girl in the street begged me to buy them."

Esther took them up eagerly.

"They are my favourite flowers," she said. "And I haven't had any given to me for--oh, for ever so long."

It gave her a little pang to remember that Ashton had always brought her violets in the first days of their acquaintance. It was one of the many little attentions which he had gradually dropped.

"You're not to let Mr. Harley fall in love with you, mind," June said severely as they went upstairs after dinner. "He's much too nice to be made unhappy--even by you," she added affectionately.

Esther stared.

"Why, whatever do you mean?" she cried. "I never see him or speak to him, except at meal times."

"I mean what I say," June insisted. "Didn't you see how he looked at you when you took his violets?"

Esther flushed with vexation.

"Why, what perfect nonsense!" she protested.