In spite of the events of the night Micky Mellowes slept soundly. It was half-past nine when he woke, to find his man Driver moving noiselessly about the room.
When he saw that Micky was awake he approached the bed.
“Good-morning, sir, and a happy New Year.”
Driver had an expressionless voice; he announced tea or tragedy in exactly the same tone.
“Eh?” said Micky vacantly; the words opened the door of memory, and he sat up with a start. It was New Year’s Day, and last night ... ye gods! what had not happened last night? Micky tingled to the tips of his fingers as he remembered the letter he had written and posted; he had expected to feel rotten about it in the light of day; it was an agreeable surprise to find that he did not feel anything of the kind.
When he went in to breakfast there was a pile of letters waiting for him; he looked them through carelessly––there was one from Marie Deland, which he opened with a vague feeling of nervousness.
Marie was a nice little girl; he really was quite fond of her, and yet ... surely the days of miracles had not yet passed away, seeing that in a few short hours his feeling for her had changed from something warmer to more brotherly affection.
It made him feel uncomfortable to read what she had written; it was really only quite an ordinary letter of regret that she had not seen him last night, but Micky imagined he could read more between the lines.
“... I quite hoped you would drop in, if only 31 for a few moments,” so she wrote. “It’s been so dull. I am writing this alone in the library.”
Micky knew that library well; he and she had spent a good deal of time there together talking sweet nothings; he wondered if he would have been an engaged man by this time if that relative of the Delands had not so conveniently died, and if Esther had not chosen his particular street in which to weep.