“He is,” June maintained stoutly. “She doesn’t think so, of course, but he is, all the same.” She broke off as Esther came back.
Esther woke in the morning with a pleasurable sense of something going to happen. She lay still for a moment looking round her at the heavy, old fashioned furniture and flowered chintz curtains.
Miss Dearling’s house was essentially Early Victorian, from its wool mats and stuffed birds in the sitting-room to the high four-posted bedsteads and faded Brussels carpets.
But there was something very old-world and charming about it too, in spite of rather ugly furniture, and Esther was just admiring the dressing-table, with its petticoat of spotted muslin and pink ribbons, when the door opened and June thrust her head round.
“Can I come in?” She did not wait for an answer, but came in, her long mauve silk kimono making a little rustling sound as she walked.
“I’m really dressed,” she explained, sitting down on Esther’s bed. “All but my frock, at least, and as the post has just come, and a letter from Micky, I thought I’d come and tell you that he’ll be down to-day––after lunch, and he wants us to meet him. I can’t go, as I’ve got a business appointment at three, so you must. He’s going to drive up to the station and wait there for one of us to come and show him where we live.”
There was a little silence. Esther flushed beneath the elder girl’s shrewd gaze.
“I should have thought he could have found out where we live,” she said rather awkwardly. “And it’s such a little way–––”