“I’m not going to stay, only ... only I....” Her voice changed suddenly. “Oh, Mr. Mellowes, will you tell me how I can get to Paris?”
“Paris!” Micky echoed the word helplessly. “Paris!” he said again. For the moment he stared at her with blank eyes.
She rushed on impetuously.
“I have a friend there––some one I ... some one I ... oh, it’s the man I’m engaged to, and I want to see him––I must see him! I’ve got the money to get there. I hope you don’t think I was going to ask you to lend me that....” she added in distress.
“Miss Shepstone ... I––I....” Micky was horribly upset. “I never thought anything of the sort. And––and even if you were going to ask me, you know quite well that anything I have, anything....”
She stopped him hurriedly.
“Oh, I know, it’s very kind of you.” Her blue eyes sought his face with a sort of abasement. “I don’t think I’ve ever really realised how kind you’ve been to me,” she said. “But ... but I’ve been so worried and unhappy ... I––I do hope you’ll forgive me if I was rude or unkind.”
Micky did not answer; so it had come at last, the explanations which he had always dreaded; he racked his brains in vain to think of a way out of it––to make out the best story he could.
She seemed to realise his perturbation, she came a step nearer to him.