"No----" Esther was looking away into the fire. "No, I'm not married," she said in a stifled voice. "He--my fiancé--has had to go away on business--abroad, and I don't know when I shall see him again."
"You poor little thing!" said June Mason. She leaned over and laid her hand on Esther's. "Never mind! The time will soon pass, and then he'll come back and you'll live happily ever after----"
"I know. I keep on telling myself it's foolish to worry. I felt quite happy this morning. I had a letter from him, and somehow when I read it things didn't seem half so bad; but----"
"And you'll have another to-morrow, I expect." Miss Mason insisted. "And another the next day, and one every day while he's away. There! That's better," she added cheerily as Esther laughed.
"I don't like to see you look so sad. I'm going to cheer you up. I shan't allow you to be miserable. And anyway," she added, with a sudden softening, "you've got some one who loves you, and that's worth everything else in the world."
"Yes," said Esther. Her eyes shone and she thought of the letter which was even then lying against her heart. Somehow she had never realised how much he really cared for her till to-day.
"And what are you going to do till he comes home?" Miss Mason asked interestedly. "If you had something to do you'd find the time pass ever so much more quickly."
"It's a question of having to do something rather than how to pass the time," Esther said. "I haven't any money except what I can make. My aunt left me a little when she died, but it was only a very little, and I spent most of it at first while I was looking for work. So I'm going back to Eldred's--if they will have me, and I think they will."
"I think you're too good for a petticoat shop," she said bluntly. "You're wasted there! Nobody sees you, and you're so pretty----"
"Oh, what nonsense!" Esther exclaimed. She laughed in sheer amusement. To her it seemed absurd for this girl to call her pretty; she considered June Mason such a personality--so attractive!
She really did make a picturesque figure as she sat there with her mauve cushions all around her. Her yellow blouse and dark hair and wonderful rose-leaf skin reminded one of some brilliant portrait painted by a master-hand.