Micky coloured. “I met him––quite by chance, though. We were not together more than a few minutes.”
She smiled rather ironically.
“Have you got tired of him at last, then?” she asked. She moved over to the fire. She looked back at Micky quizzically. “I have often wondered how you put up with his friendship so long, Mr. Mellowes,” she added rather sadly.
Micky felt embarrassed. He had always liked Mrs. Ashton. He stammered out that he and Raymond had always been very good friends.
She drew her chair a little closer to the fire.
“Very well––then, perhaps, you will be kind enough to answer a question I am going to ask you. Mr. Mellowes, what was the name of that girl at Eldred’s whom Raymond was always about with before Christmas?”
The question was so unexpected that Micky was utterly taken aback. Before he was aware of it he had told a lie.
“I don’t know––at least, he always spoke of her as ‘Lallie.’ I never once saw him with her, Mrs. Ashton––he never introduced me to her.”
She looked rather incredulous.
“And yet you were such friends,” she said.