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Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1921, by
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
DEDICATED
TO MY FRIEND
Janet Moore
THE REAL ‘JUNE MASON’
IN THIS STORY
THE PHANTOM LOVER
Somewhere out in the night a woman was crying,crying desolately. The sad, rather monotonoussound broke the silence of the street and floatedthrough the open window of a room where Micky Melloweswas wondering how the deuce he should getthrough the long evening lying before him.
Micky was in a bad temper. It was not often that hewas in a bad temper, but he had begun the day by wakingwith a headache, which was still with him, and whichaccounted for the wide open window and the breath oficy air which was filling the room and fluttering thecurtains; and half an hour ago some people with whomhe had been going to dine had rung up and told him thatthe party was off owing to the sudden death of a relative,thereby leaving the evening long and empty on hishands.
It was New Year’s Eve, too, which made matters athundering sight worse.
He wondered if Marie Deland was feeling as sickabout it as he was. Micky was in the middle of an interestingflirtation with Marie, which bade fair to developinto something deeper with careful engineering onthe part of her family, for Micky was a catch, andthough so far he had proved himself singularly adroitin avoiding mothers with marriageable daughters, theDelands were beginning to pat each other on the backand to look pleased.
When the sound of crying reached him he had been4feeling so thoroughly fed-up with life that it had seemedimpossible for anything ever to interest him again; butnow he climbed out of his chair with a faint show ofenergy and strolled over to the window.
It was a cold, clear night, with myriads of stars inthe dark sky that seemed to shed a faintly luminouslight to earth, bright enough at all events for Mickyto distinguish the figure of a girl walking slowly alongthe pathway below.
She was walking so slowly and dispiritedly that a sortof vague curiosity stirred in Micky’s heart; here, at least,was some one even more fed