"I shan't come back till the autumn anyway," he declared recklessly.
"Very good, sir," was the stolid reply. Driver knew his master; he could remember another occasion when Micky had left London in a rage never to return, and ten days had seen him back again.
Certainly this was rather a different case from that other; this time there was a woman behind it. Driver knew this perfectly well, though beyond the posting of letters and the buying of the fur coat he had had no firsthand evidence.
But he kept his thoughts to himself and packed shirts and socks and coats by the score, as if to keep up the belief that they were really going for months, instead of the day which were the limit he prescribed in his own mind.
When Rochester called later on in the evening, Micky was almost rude to him. The American looked so unfeignedly happy that it got on Micky's nerves; but George P. Rochester was difficult to snub; he looked on at the packing with childlike amazement.
"It's a sudden idea of yours, this flitting!" he submitted mildly. Micky did not answer.
"Hope you'll be back in time for my wedding, Sonnie," Rochester said again.
Micky flushed crimson; there was something rather pathetic about him at that moment.
"Oh, I'll be back all right," he said shortly.
"You won't have to stay away long then," he said significantly.
Esther woke from a troubled sleep that night, to find June standing beside her. Pale moonlight shone into the room from half-drawn blinds, filling it with an eerie light, as Esther started up trembling and frightened.
"What is it? is anything the matter? Oh, I thought you were a ghost!" She clutched at June with both hands. "Oh, is anything the matter?" she asked again.
June laughed nervously; she found matches and lit a candle, then she came back to Esther and thrust something into her hands.
"You'll never forgive me," she said. "But I've had it in my coat pocket for two days...." She pushed her dark hair back from her forehead tragically. "Lydia gave it to me for you the day I went out in my best hat to meet George, and I was such a selfish, conceited pig that he put everything else out of my head, and I forgot all about it till just now, when I was lying awake thinking ... and then ... oh, Esther, it's from Micky!"
