She looked round the little room with angry eyes. If only Fate had set her feet in sunnier paths. She looked at the plain furniture and cheap carpet; the wallpaper was hideous; there was a frightful oleograph of two Early Victorian women with crinolines and ringlet curls hanging over the mantlepiece. They both looked smug and self-satisfied. There was an enlarged photograph of a bald-headed man wearing a Masonic apron on another wall. He was fat and had his right hand plastered carefully along a chair-back to bring into prominence a large signet ring. Esther looked at him and shivered. She felt utterly alone and cut off from the world. She longed for Raymond Ashton with all her soul. She hated Micky Mellowes because his kindly condescension had made her feel her position more acutely now she knew him to be what he was.
In spite of the new friend she had made in June Mason she felt lonely and unwanted; she began to cry like a child, as she sat there on the side of the iron bedstead; the tears ran down her cheeks and she made no effort to wipe them away.
She wanted to be happy so badly, and it seemed as if she never was to be happy. The elation that had come to her when she read Micky’s letter that morning had faded miserably; after all, what was a letter when it was a real, living personality she wanted, and not mere words?
Downstairs she could hear June Mason moving about and singing; she at least was happy with her little mauve pots and her cheery optimism.
Esther cried all the time she undressed; she crept into bed sobbing miserably, like a child who sleeps at a boarding-school for the first time.
CHAPTER V
Micky passed three days before he made any attempt to see Esther Shepstone again; days that seemed like a month at least, and during which he lost his appetite and forgot to smoke.