“Mr. Mellowes,” she said earnestly, “will you tell me something?”
“Yes,” said Micky inaudibly, but he did not look at her.
She looked up at him, trying to see his face before she asked her question.
“Do you––do you know who the man is that I am going to marry?”
In the silence that followed her timid question, Micky 182 felt that he lived through years. Should he tell her the truth, or should he not? Ashton was out of London by this time; in another forty-eight hours he would be married to another woman; he raised his head with a sort of desperation. “No,” he said.
He tried to comfort himself with the knowledge that at least it was substantially the truth; she was not going to marry Ashton––she never could marry him now.
He heard the sigh of relief she gave.
“I’m glad,” she said. “Somehow, lately, I have thought that you did know. Mr. Mellowes ... last night ... I thought I saw him in the theatre last night. I know now that I was mistaken.” She paused a moment and looked past him to the window and the cold grey street outside. “I couldn’t have seen him,” she said again, as if to convince herself rather than him. “Because he is in Paris––I found out this morning that he is still in Paris.”
“Yes,” said Micky. His voice sounded choked. “And so––so you want to go out there to him, is that it?”
Her face brightened.