June threw away the cigarette and tried to raise Esther.
"What are you talking about? He did write to you--you told me yourself that he wrote beautiful letters--he sent you that money--Esther! what do you mean?"
Esther looked up; for a moment June caught a glimpse of misty, shamed eyes.
"They weren't from him: those letters--the money never came from him," she said in a stifled voice.
"What! My good child, have you gone out of your mind?"
June was a hundred miles from guessing the truth. "If he didn't write them, then who in the world did?" she demanded crisply. "And if he didn't send the money, who in the wide world...."
She caught her breath on a sudden illuminating thought.
"Yes." It was the smallest whisper, and it was followed by a tragic silence; then June got up and began walking aimlessly about the room; she felt as if she had been robbed of all breath.
Twice she turned and looked at Esther's huddled figure, then she went back, laid a hand on her arm and said in an odd, gentle voice that was strangely unlike her own brisk tones:
"And do you mean to say that you don't just think him the finest man in all the world?"
"I didn't think of him at all--it was like having a knife turned in my heart when I knew," she said wildly. "Oh, you can't understand if you've never cared for anybody what it feels like to know that you've been made a fool of. When he told me I felt that I hated him--there didn't seem anything fine or good in what he had done; I only knew that I'd been played with, made fun of...." She stopped, sobbing desperately, but for once June attempted no consolation. She was looking at Micky's portrait on the shelf, and there was a wonderful tenderness in her queer eyes.
"Who told you?" she asked then. "Who told you that it was Micky?"
"He did--he only told me when he knew why I was going to Paris--he told me in the train. It's been from Mr. Mellowes all along--the money I've had every week--my clothes--this coat ... he's been paying for my food, and for me to live here...." She raised her eyes to June's face. "Did you know?" she asked shakily. "He said you didn't, but somehow...."
"If Micky said that I didn't, that ought to be good enough," she said curtly. "And of course, I didn't know--if I had, I should have told him that he was a fool to waste his time and money on a girl who thought nothing of him," she added flatly. Her voice changed all at once. "Oh, isn't he just splendid!" she said emotionally. "I don't understand it in the very least, why he has done it, or how he managed it, or anything, but I think it's the finest thing in all the world----" Esther turned away.