“It’s not that,” he said, “but Ashton was up in that box with his mother, and she saw him.”
“Micky–––” He silenced her with a frown. He followed Esther as quickly as he could, but she was outside in the cold night air before he overtook her. There was a crowd here too––rows of cars and carriages outside, and women in thin evening frocks and furs shivering in the cold wind.
Micky drew Esther’s hand through his arm.
“We shall find our cab this way, I think,” he said evenly.
He had seen Mrs. Ashton only a few yards away, and he dreaded every moment that Esther would see her, and see, too, who was with her.
A sudden block in the crowd momentarily hindered them, and in that second a man’s light laugh rang out above the noise and chatter of voices.
Micky felt the girl beside him give a convulsive start. She tried to drag her fingers from his, but he held them fast.
The crowd was moving again now; a second, and Raymond and his mother were lost to sight.
Micky had slipped an arm round Esther; he was white to the lips. He knew now how near he had been to discovery and the wreck of all his hopes. He tried to pretend that he did not understand the cause of her agitation. He looked down at her.