Ashton coloured.
“No––it’s better not––far better let the thing drop till I come back. I’ve explained it all in my letter––she’ll understand. It’s no use writing––don’t you think it’s better not–––”
Micky hunched his shoulders.
“It’s your affair,” he said laconically.
“Yes, well, I shan’t write––I’ll send you my address as soon as I know where I’m staying, and you can let me know what she said and how she takes it.... Oh, confound it!”
A porter had come along and slammed the door; the train was slowly moving; Micky was vaguely glad that there had been no time in which to shake hands. A 23 moment, and he was walking away alone down the platform.
His hands were deep thrust in the pockets of his coat; he took no notice of anything; he walked on and out of the station.
Well, this had been an eventful New Year’s Eve with a vengeance; he glanced up at the clock in the dome behind him––only a quarter to twelve now, and yet so much had been crowded into the past four hours. Since the moment when the Delands rang up to cancel his engagement to dine he seemed to have stepped out of the old world into a new. He wondered what Esther Shepstone was doing in the very horrid boarding-house of which she had told him––if she was thinking of Ashton.
What a cad the man was, what a cad!––he was amazed that he had not discovered it before––to clear off and leave a girl like this, without a word of farewell except the letter. He wondered if he meant to deliver it and admit that he knew Ashton, or if he meant just to stick a stamp on and post it to her.
He realised that there was nothing very much to be proud of in an admission that he knew Ashton, and yet they had been friends for years.