Micky was stooping, patting Charlie’s head.
“It’s in an office,” he said, after a moment; his voice sounded a little uncertain. “I don’t think it would really suit her, though––now I’ve seen her,” he hastened to add. “It would be too hard work––late hours and all the rest of it, dontcherknow.”
June looked at his bent head shrewdly.
“Humph!” she said. “Perhaps it’s just as well this phantom lover of Esther’s has turned up trumps, if that’s all you’d got to offer her.”
“Phantom lover!” said Micky; his voice sounded as if he were annoyed. “Whom are you talking about?”
“Esther’s beloved,” June said airily. “She won’t tell me his name, so I call him the phantom lover, because I’ve got an eerie sort of feeling in my mind about him that he doesn’t really exist. What do you think, Micky?”
“My dear girl, how can I possibly know?”
June produced some cigarettes.
“If he were all that she’d like me to believe he is,” she said shrewdly, “she’d tell me more about him. She 95 certainly got a bit more confidential to-day, and said that he had a cat for a mother and a few things like that. She had another letter from him this morning; he’s in Paris––on business, so he tells her.” She laughed, turning her face for a moment against the mauve cushion. Suddenly she sat upright again, “Micky, I should hate that man if I knew him!”
Micky smiled.