Micky coloured.
“Our tastes were not always identical,” he said rather stiffly. “I am not very interested in women, and he–––”
“And he is,” she finished for him. “There is no need to tell me that––I know my son. So you cannot tell me the name of this girl? I had hoped that you would be able to do so.”
Micky met her eyes unflinchingly.
“I dare say I could find out,” he said. “If she is still at Eldred’s.”
“She is not there.” Mrs. Ashton looked up at Micky with an anxious line between her handsome eyes. “Mr. Mellowes, I have always prided myself on my sense of justice, and somehow lately I have got an uncomfortable feeling that when I forbade Raymond to have anything more to do with that girl it would have been better if I had advised her to have nothing more to do with him. He is my son, and perhaps it seems strange for me to speak about him like that, but you cannot have been friends with him all these months without finding him out, so I need not apologise. Raymond is just his father over again....” She paused, and a painful little smile curved her lips.
She looked at Micky rather pathetically. “There is no need for me to say any more, is there?” she asked.
Micky did not answer. He had heard many stories about Raymond’s father, all more or less unsavoury, and he knew that from all accounts Mrs. Ashton had been greatly to be pitied during his lifetime.
“So if you can’t help me in this,” she went on presently, “I am afraid I have brought you here for nothing. I want to find out who this girl is, and see her for myself.” She paused, but Micky’s face was inscrutable.