“No,” said Micky promptly. “I think it will be your fault.”
Esther raised her eyes slowly. Micky was smiling.
“Yes, I mean it,” he said seriously. “The first time I ever saw you I thought to myself, ‘Here she is! That right woman I’ve been waiting for all my life’––but, of course, you didn’t think I was the right man, and so that ended it,” he added philosophically.
Esther did not like to hear him speak so lightly. She would have been surprised if she could have known the desperate unhappiness in his heart, the bitterness that 209 drove him to speak so flippantly of all that he held best and dearest.
She made no attempt to answer him, and presently he said again with change of voice––
“Are you hungry, I wonder? Because I am! And I’ve got a firm conviction that we’re coming to a wayside inn. Do you see the chimneys through the trees?...”
He slowed the car a little.
“There’s another car outside––what do you say? Shall we risk it?”
“It would be rather nice,” Esther admitted. She was feeling cold; she was rather glad when the car stopped and Micky gave her his hand.
“They’ve got a fire anyway,” he said cheerily. “I saw it through the window, and we’ll ask for some coffee.”