"I didn't mean to hurt you--I'm a perfect beast," June declared in remorse. "But it does seem such a shame."
"We can't all have money and be independent," she said hardily. "But I think you might try and understand how I feel about it."
"I only know that I'm dying to help you, and you won't let me," June said grumpily. "Lord! where is my cigarette case? I shall swear or do something worse if I can't smoke."
She went out of the room, and Esther heard her go clattering up the stairs. There were tears in her eyes now, but she brushed them angrily away; after all, what was there to cry for! It was only that she had got to go back to where she had left off that New Year's Eve when she first met Micky; everything was just as it had been then, save that she was the poorer now by the loss of a dream.
June's friendship with Mr. George P. Rochester grew apace.
"Micky's introductions are _always_ a success," she told Esther. "And Micky likes him too--awfully! Mr. Rochester is round at Micky's rooms nearly every night. They're _ever_ such pals!"
"Are they?" said Esther. The mention of Micky's name always seemed to make her heart quiver. She wondered if June knew why he never came to the house now, and what she thought about it all.
In her own mind she was sure that Micky had cast her off, and the knowledge left her with a sense of desolation.
She never spoke of him unless June did so first, and she tried never to think of him. But Micky was a personality not to be lightly dismissed from memory, and he haunted her thoughts waking and sleeping.
"If I could only get some work," she told herself, "it would be better. It's so dreadful having nothing to do."
She had applied to Eldred's unsuccessfully--she had climbed the narrow stairs of the agency a dozen times only to be met with rebuff.
"You refused an excellent post I offered to you," she was told icily. "I am not likely to be able to find you such another."
June coaxed her into helping with the "swindle."
"If you don't I'll have to pay some one else to do it," she declared. "And oh, Esther, _don't_ be so proud!"
So Esther gave in. She filled the little mauve pots with the profound skin food and fastened on lids and labels till her head swam.