Front matter (continued 2)

Maggy had gone.

Except for the letter, which was final enough, it was difficult to realize. She had not even taken her box, only a small handbag. Her possessions had been so pitifully meager. Her wooden-backed brush and a metal comb were still on the dressing-table, but the cheap German silver powder box and her rouge and cream pots were gone; there was the nightdress case on her bed in the crochet work that was Maggy's hobby with the big badly-worked M in washed-out greens and pinks. Wrapped in a little screw of paper was the money she had left behind. She had taken Alexandra's photograph, and for some reason she had turned the face of her own to the wall.

A wild desire came to Alexandra to run out, late as it was, go to Maggy and bring her back. Then she remembered that she did not even know where Maggy was. She was gone and that was all; swallowed up in the immensity of London; captured by some man unknown.

The realization that Maggy had deliberately stolen away at the call of exigency hurt her acutely. Passion had never touched Alexandra. Just now she could only feel impatience with one who was moved by it to extremes. But mingled with the distaste for a thing she could not comprehend was compassion for her friend. Some part of Maggy must be suffering, sorry. No woman surrenders herself without some secret, sacred regret.

She sat thinking, trying not to think, for hours. Finally, she undressed and, in the darkness, said her prayers. She felt they were futile, childish.... She turned her face to the wall so that she should not see the ghostly outline of Maggy's narrow, empty bed.

As the hours passed and sleep did not come she began to wonder if it were not all a dream. The idea took hold of her. Of course, Maggy had not gone....

She sat up and spoke her name across the darkness.

"Maggy!"

Although there was no answer, the tantalizing obsession was still upon her. She got out of bed and crossed over to Maggy's, feeling above the coverlet for the comforting touch of the warm, sleepy body. The coverlet was flat, the sheets cool. Maggy had gone.

She groped her way back to her own bed, and at last tears came, and with tears, sleep.

By the morning, the sharp edge of her feelings was somewhat blunted. She was still sorry, but not passionately sorry. Those who have wept for their dead with the poignancy of first grief experience much the same dulling of the emotions. It precedes the inevitable resignation, without which they could not again take up the lonely burden of life.

Maggy was lost to her, as lost to her as if she had died. She had not the consolation of knowing that she would see her again, alive, exuberantly happy, unregretting, and that this feeling would pass. She did not know then that across the barrier of her frailty Maggy would hold out her strong, young, eager hands, and that she, Alexandra, would grasp them in unalterable love and friendship.

She put away the money Maggy had wanted her to take until she could give it back to her, and directly she had had her breakfast, started for the theatrical agents' offices. They opened at ten. She had small hope of obtaining anything at any of them. The principals did not know her by sight. When one of them made an occasional dart into the waiting room and gave a quick glance round she was only "one of a crowd."

At such times there would be a little stir and scrimmage amongst the men and women in which she would not share. Men would elbow women, women elbow men in their efforts to catch the agent's eye or better still his sleeve. And he would shake them off in a precipitate passage from his own room to that of his partner's at the other end of the waiting room. Alexandra knew his short, little, staccato, stock sentences by heart.

"Nothing for you to-day, dear." (Shake her off.)

"Sorry, my dear, I can't stop." (Shake her off.)

"No, my dear, I—oh, it's you. Stop behind. I'll see you later." (Pressure of the hand.)

"Nothing in your line to-day, old fellow." (Shake him off.)

Perhaps a fleeting look at Alexandra, so that she was in doubt as to whether she had been noticed or not.

Then the crowd would wait on, lessened by the few who lost heart and went on to other agencies. The assembly varied little in any of these refuges of the out-of-works. There you would find every specimen of stageland: the sprightly young man with an eye stimulated hopefully by sherry from the adjacent Bodega, dressed in the last fashionable suit left from his wardrobe, his waistcoat pocket bulging with pawntickets; the old actor with a blue chin, a red nose and a kindly smile, unctuously imparting the latest "wheeze" to a brother comedy-merchant; the hard-eyed woman of forty, rouged, smelling of spirits and patchouli, consumed with inward wrath because of the refusal of managers to entertain her applications for youthful parts; the fresh-looking girl with an air of country lanes and a pigtail, who nevertheless was bred and born at Stratford-at-Bow; the seedy advance-agent, vainly trying to adopt a managerial air; the plump and cheery chorister with no ambitions beyond thirty shillings a week and a long pantomime run; her male compeer nourishing a secret belief that he could "wipe the floor" with every tenor on the boards.

Eleven, twelve, one o'clock, and still the patient crowd would linger on in the agents' offices, chattering intermittently, giggling occasionally, desperately anxious all the same, eyes ever glancing toward the two shut doors.

At one would come the unwelcome news, spoken by the young man who kept the accounts and made out the contracts:

"Mr. Whitehead's gone to lunch. Won't be back to-day. No use waiting."

How quickly the room emptied! Alexandra did not know that a goodly proportion of its habitués would quickly foregather for consultation and refreshment in Rule's or the Bodega, where the atmosphere was redolent of alcoholic odors, curiously aromatic, sonorous with sustained conversation and the low chuckle of the comedians.

One saw the same faces again after the luncheon hour, at Denton's, at Hart's, at Paul Stannard's, a little less hopeful, a little more tired as the day went on.

Paul Stannard had got Alexandra her engagement at De Freyne's. She went to him again now. She liked him. He was a gentleman by birth, had drifted on to the stage, loathed it, could not get free of it, and ended by running a theatrical agency with fair success. He did not call all girls "dear," only the ones that liked it, and was more accessible to the rank and file than most agents.

"I thought I had fixed you up with De Freyne," he said. "His show's in for a long run. Couldn't stick it?"

"Mr. De Freyne told me to go."

Alexandra was tired. She could hardly stand.

"Sit down," invited Stannard. "Up against it?"

"Well, I've nothing to do. It's serious."

"I'm sorry." He turned over the leaves of a big book on his desk. "And I can't help you. Nothing's doing, except a sextette for Rio."

"Can't I go?" she asked eagerly.

"My God, no!"

He put his hands in his pockets and surveyed her compassionately. Belonging as he did to the class that shelters its women it still hurt him to see women engaged in fighting for bread. It was more desperate still when they fought for honor too, or held it above the price of bread.

"Why did you send me to the Pall Mall if you knew they wouldn't want—any one straight-laced?"

"I can't ask every girl who comes to me for a job to sign an affidavit concerning her morals. Why are you on the stage at all if you've got different ideas to the others? You haven't an earthly. Might as well buy a toothbrush."

"Buy a toothbrush?"

"To sweep out an Augean stable." He scribbled some addresses on a half sheet of paper. "There's just a chance these aren't filled up. Mention my name. I don't hold out any hope, though." He hesitated for a minute. "Are you bound to go on at this? Haven't you a home to go to?"

"I'm bound to go on," she said, trying to keep the desperate note out of her voice.

"Well, good luck." Stannard held open the door for her.

"Poor devil!" he said as he shut it.

XII

All the names which Stannard had given her were those of minor managers. It was late in the season and their companies would in all probability be made up and booked for the road. Still she went to them. There was a bare chance that one of them might have a vacancy. For two hours she hung about their offices waiting for an interview, only to waste her time in the end. "Full up" was the answer she got to each application. The last place she called at was situated in a block of buildings off Shaftesbury Avenue. As she left it a door facing her on the opposite side of the passage opened and a man in a frock coat and silk hat came out. He stopped short, looked her up and down and spoke.

"Excuse me, but are you out of an engagement?"

"Yes," she replied, a last glimmer of hope flickering within her, the silk hat suggesting something managerial.

The stranger's next words confirmed her in this idea.

"I believe you're the very person I've been looking for for a week. The question is, can you sing?"

"Yes."

"Then come in."

He threw the door open again and followed her in. The room contained two chairs, a desk, a small grand piano, one or two playbills on the walls and several diagrams of the larynx, looking not unlike a map of the tube railways.

"This is my practise room and therefore bare," he explained. "It's bad to sing in a room blocked up with furniture. Breaks up the voice, you know. By the way, my name's Norburton—Gerald Norburton. You may have heard of it," he added modestly.

Alexandra had heard of it. The name was that of a singer of some repute.

"Oh, then, you're not an agent," she said, a little disappointed.

"Lord, no." The idea seemed to amuse him. "Fact of the matter is this: my friend, Maurice Haines, wrote to me the other day—here's his letter—asking me to find him a likely girl for a sketch he has booked at the Palace. He'd engaged some one, but she's just gone in for appendicitis. Funny thing, appendicitis. Has it ever occurred to you—" The blank look in Alexandra's face constrained him to keep to business. "So he appeals to me, thinking that as a singer I might know some one likely. But I didn't—not until I saw you. If you can sing it's a sure thing." He read from the letter he had been searching for.

"'She must be tall and dark and a lady. Youth essential. Of course she must have a well-trained voice, but previous experience doesn't matter. I'll look in next week, and if you know a girl who will do, for heaven's sake have her round. The sketch is booked for the next six months, first here and then in the leading provincial towns. I'll pay ten pounds a week for the right woman.'

"What do you think of that?"

"It seems to me it depends on my voice," said Alexandra.

"That's it. Do you mind singing me something? Here's a pile of songs. Pick out one you know."

She found a song. Norburton played the accompaniment. She had an idea she was singing well and hoped he would think so. When she finished, she had the impression that he was not satisfied.

"I'm afraid you're disappointed," she said, with foreboding.

"No, not exactly. You've a nice voice. You want to know how to pitch it better. As it is it won't carry. I believe I could teach you in five days, before Haines comes round."

"I couldn't expect you to do that."

"But I do teach," he laughed. "Do you doubt my capability? I assure you that besides being a public singer I get three guineas for every half-hour lesson I give."

"What I meant was," said Alexandra, "that I couldn't expect you to coach me for nothing, and I couldn't pay enough to make it worth your while."

He appeared to think.

"I want to do my best for Haines," he said. "Look here. I'll give you five lessons—one every day for ten minutes—and you can pay me what you can afford, five shillings a lesson, say."

She colored. "That's charity."

"No. I really want to help Haines."

Now Alexandra had little more than five shillings in her purse. The next quarterly payment of her annuity would not be due for a fortnight. In the meantime all she possessed was some old jewelry that had belonged to her mother. There was the money Maggy had left behind her, but she was not going to touch that.

"I should like you to teach me. It's very good of you," she said. "Would you take this instead of money? It's worth a little more than five five-shilling lessons." She tendered him a ring with a single pearl in an antique setting. A pawnbroker would have lent her five pounds on it. She was anxious that he should take the ring. It would make her feel less under an obligation to him.

Apparently he appreciated her feelings.

"That's very pretty of you," he said. "It fits my little finger, too. Would you rather I took it?" There was a shade of reluctance in his voice.

"Much rather."

"Well, thank you very much. Now I must pull you through by a little teaching. Can you have your first lesson now? No time like the present, is there? Stand in the corner over there to the right. Now, sing 'ah' on middle C. Keep your tongue well down. Give it room—give it room! Swell it out! You'll do very well," he said, after ten minutes. "To-morrow, same time. I'll drop Haines a line. Don't thank me, please."

Another girl came in as Alexandra went out. She heard Norburton tell her she was early.

"Have you heard from Mr. ——" She thought the name mentioned was Haines, but argued she must have been mistaken. The girl was fair and short, not at all the type Norburton's friend wanted. Alexandra assumed she must be one of the singer's private pupils, and thought no more about her.

For the next four days she came for her lessons, and at the end of that time Norburton told her he was quite satisfied with the result.

"Haines will be here to-morrow at eleven," he told her. "Don't worry, you'll get the engagement."

All the same she did worry. She pinned her hopes on it. She had curtailed her food down to the irreductible minimum. Privation showed in her looks. She was not a big eater, but her physique demanded good and nourishing food, which now she never got. She wanted new shoes and gloves badly. These she could not manage to do without indefinitely. She began to lose confidence in herself in these days. She knew her appearance was noticeably shabby, and that she was getting the delicate look that employers dislike. One cannot say to the man from whom one is hoping for an engagement: "I'm pale, but I'll look better when I can afford to feed myself properly. My clothes are shabby, but they would be in rags if I hadn't looked after them as if they were priceless brocades. And I'm not poor and hungry and out of an engagement because I've no talent, but because I've certain principles that I've brought to the wrong place. Give me a chance and don't ask anything else of me."

At five minutes to eleven the next day she was in Shaftesbury Avenue. Outside Mr. Norburton's door some ten or twelve girls were waiting. They looked a mixed lot, all of them anxious, poor and shabby.

"He told me ten," said one of them, "and he's not here yet."

"I've been here since half-past nine," said another.

One bold spirit rapped sharply on the door.

As a result one next to it bearing a brass plate and a solicitor's name was opened and a man put his head out and angrily demanded:

"Who's making that row? If you're waiting to see the fellow who had that room, he's gone. Went away yesterday afternoon."

"Meaning Mr. Norburton?" asked one of the girls.

"I don't know what his name was. He's gone, anyhow. It's no good waiting about and making a noise."

He shut the door. The girls stared at one another blankly.

"I want to know the meaning of this," said one of them truculently. "P'raps the caretaker can tell us." She clattered down the stone stairs, and half a dozen of the others followed her.

A fair girl standing next to Alexandra spoke to her.

"Did you want to see Mr. Norburton too?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid I shan't." Alexandra felt faint.

"I don't think we shall either. It's my belief we've been done. Did he give you lessons?"

"Five."

"I had five, too," nodded the girl. "Two pounds I paid the blighter. He said I'd suit Mr. Haines a treat. Read me a letter saying he wanted a fair girl with a good figure and contralto voice— What's that? It was a 'tall and dark' to you! My hat! What did you pay?"

"I gave him a pearl ring."

"O-oh!" Her eyes went round. "I saw it on his finger. Then you were hard up?"

"I had the ring, but not the money to pay him."

"And I had the money. And I haven't got it now."

One of the girls who had gone to make enquiries below came up again.

"Thought I'd come and tell you," she panted. "It's true. He's gone, right enough. The piano was hired and it's been fetched away. He's done seventeen of us, the beast! His name isn't Norburton at all, but Easton or Weston, I forget which. If the real Mr. Norburton or Maurice Haines heard what he'd been up to they'd prosecute him. He's just been using their names to cod us. Oh, I'd like to—to—" The unspoken threat tailed off in a resigned sigh. "Well, there's a voice-trial at Daly's at 11.30. I'm off."

Alexandra did not move. She was dazed. The other girls melted away, all but one little creature in black who commenced to sob.

"Don't cry," said Alexandra, touched by her grief. "You must try and forget the disappointment."

The girl raised streaming eyes. She was very plain and wore her hair frizzed out all round her head. The fingers through which her tears had been trickling were red and work-worn.

"I paid him f-four pounds in gold," she wept. "And he s-said my voice was g-good enough to get me the engagement. And I've given notice at the place I'm at on the strength of it, and now I'll have to go back and ask to be kept on. Makes me ashamed of myself, it does, after what I said to the mistress about gettin' ten pounds a week on the stage. And now f-four pounds of good money gone!"

"Haven't you any left?"

"I've got eleven saved, but it would have been fifteen," sniffed the girl. She took it hardly that she had to pay so heavily for her experience.

"Well, then, cheer up," said Alexandra. "I haven't got fifteen shillings."

"Not in the world?"

"Not in the world."

"But you're a lady!"

"Am I?" asked poor Alexandra. Tears were not far from her own eyes now. The girl saw them, and the fount of her own dried up in her compassion for a disappointment that must be even greater than her own because of the actual need behind it. A lady, and with less than fifteen shillings in the world! Why, she had always been able to earn nearly ten shillings a week, without counting her board and keep. She had always been able to count on regular employment, plenty of food and a fairly comfortable bed; and until she had been dazzled by the magnificent prospect of ten pounds a week and still more by the idea of becoming a "star actress," she had been fairly contented with her life. She wished she had never seen that catch advertisement in the newspaper.

"I shouldn't think any more about the stage if I were you," advised Alexandra.

"I shan't," was the resolute answer. "It's no good, is it?"

"Not a bit of good."

The girl hesitated.

"Do you mind telling me," she said, "if it's very bad. The girls on it, I mean."

"It's difficult sometimes for them to be good," was Alexandra's qualified reply.

"That's pretty much what our milkman says. He had a wife he divorced that used to go on the stage once a year in pantomime."

Alexandra smiled wanly. She was getting accustomed to the democratic atmosphere of the stage, where social differences are inexistent. The dragging in of the milkman's wife was only a sharp-cut illustration of the lengths to which the leveling-down process could go. The life had robbed her of all surprise at the necessity of having to rub shoulders with ex-shopgirls and the like; but this was the first time she had found herself on terms of equality with a domestic servant.

"Dessay I'm well out of it," said the girl philosophically. "I hope you'll get on, miss."

As she passed Alexandra she stopped, making believe to pick up something that was not there.

"Oh, look what you've dropped!" she exclaimed, holding out two half-crowns.

Alexandra had come out that morning with only a few pence.

"It isn't mine," she disclaimed. "If you look in your purse you'll probably find it's your own money."

The girl made a pretense of doing so.

"No, that it isn't," she insisted. "It must be yours, right enough."

"But it can't be."

Before she could anticipate the movement, the girl slipped past her and raced down the stairs. Alexandra followed as fast as she could. But the girl was too quick for her. She was nowhere to be seen when Alexandra reached the street.

Only then did she comprehend the meaning of the generous subterfuge. She stood staring down at the money in her hand—two half-crowns, given her by a servant!

XIII

July, that theatrical close season, was wearing itself out. Alexandra subsisted on the small quarterly dividend that a grateful country bestows in the way of pension on the orphaned children of the men who fight its battles. She sweltered in her one room or else sat in the deserted ones of theatrical agencies waiting for an engagement that never came.

One sultry afternoon, on turning into Sidey Street, she found, standing opposite her door, a brand-new landaulette. In her prosperous days she had learnt to distinguish between the makes of cars, and a glance showed her that this one belonged to a type that was just then being widely advertised at a popular price. But it was neither its shape nor finish, nor even the bright coloring of its paintwork that attracted her attention so much as the large monogram composed of an M. and a D. in the center of its door-panel. The world might contain a thousand other people with those initials, but M. D. on an empty car outside Alexandra's door meant that Maggy was inside the house, waiting for her.

Her heart beat fast and she went in. There would be a visible difference in Maggy. Their girlish friendship was a closed chapter. Maggy had left her. The hurt still rankled. She felt nervous. It would be like greeting a stranger; worse, it would be meeting as a stranger one with whom she had shared a close intimacy. There would be awkwardness....

Maggy, waiting for her, felt equally nervous. She had struggled against the desire to see Alexandra again, but it had grown too strong for her. She yearned for her. She wanted to tell her that she had not deserted her, that she could still be as true a friend as ever. Suppose Alexandra were so intolerant of what she had done that she would not even let her stay a minute! Perhaps she would refuse to speak, or worse still, and this was more likely, she might pretend hard that her feelings had not changed so that she, Maggy, might not feel hurt, and Maggy would know she was pretending. She began to wish she had not come.

Looking round the little room it seemed difficult to believe that she had really left it. Only the expensive frock she was wearing, a peep through the curtains at the new toy that she liked to drive about in, assured her that she had. Then she noticed that her bed was gone. That was even more conclusive evidence of the domestic rupture than the expensive frock and the car. And yet Alexandra had her photograph on the mantel-piece. That cheered her.

During one of her periodical peeps at the window she saw Alexandra walking down the street. A panicy feeling assailed her. She peeped again and noticed how slowly she was coming along, how listless was her step. She looked tired, frail. Maggy's warm heart gave a compassionate thump. Her nervousness increased as she heard Alexandra mounting the stairs. What should she say to start with? "I was passing, and I thought I'd look in?" That would sound casual, forced. Or "I hope you don't mind my coming to see you." That would be groveling. Should she wait for Alexandra to speak first? Suppose she should say something cold and cutting, final? Suppose she just stood still, waiting for Maggy to speak? And how long might they not stand looking at each other like that, without saying a word....

Alexandra opened the door and Maggy faced round, her breast rising and falling.

Unrehearsed words bubbled from her heart.

"Oh, Lexie, I'm just the same. Won't you be?"

"Maggy, dear!"

Choking with emotion and gladness, they found they were holding hands tightly, as if they could never let go. Big tears welled up in Maggy's eyes.

"It doesn't alter one a bit," she got out huskily.

They sat down on the bed, close together, for a moment or two dumb with congestion of thought—the numberless things, essentials affecting themselves, that needed asking and answering.

"Are you happy, Maggy?"

"Don't I look it?" She irradiated happiness. Her eyes beamed, her lips laughed. "I love him, Lexie. It's lovely to love a man whatever way love comes to you. He can't give me the brown egg at breakfast because he's not there then, but I feel just as—oh, you know! I'm not really bad, Lexie. There isn't another man in the world for me. Tell me about yourself, darling. Have you got anything to do yet?"

"No. I'm beginning to wonder whether I ever shall. I can't see anything ahead. It's black."

"Your stomach's empty," said Maggy prosaically. "You look as if you've lived on nothing for ten days."

"I've lived on four-and-sixpence a week."

"Oh, Lexie! And I've had caviare and plovers' eggs and all sorts of expensive things while you've been starving!" She looked horribly contrite. "Do you know that picture advertisement with a big fat cat talking to a thin miserable one and saying it had been fed on somebody's milk? I'm the fat cat because I'm being kept by—"

"Don't!" said Alexandra.

"I'm sorry. I forgot. Fred encourages me to be downright. Don't take the pins out of your hat. Look here, Lexie. Do me a favor and come out with me sometimes. Come now! When Fred's not around I'm at a loose end, and it's lonely. I get tired of mooching round the shops and only buying things for myself. The day would go faster if I could lie in bed half the morning, but I'm so beastly energetic. I'm awake at seven and thinking of eggs and bacon. I would like to show you my flat. Would you mind coming to see it? There's no one there, only me."

She saw Alexandra hesitate.

"It's such a duck of a flat," she went on. "I haven't got any one to show it to. Dozens of times I've said to myself: if only Lexie could see this or that.... You needn't approve of me, but do come! We can have an early dinner before I go to the theater."

"But what about—"

"Fred's never there at that time. We generally lunch out and then I don't see him till after the show."

On Maggy's left hand Alexandra noticed the gleam of a wedding ring. Maggy, following her glance, smiled contentedly. For the moment it occurred to Alexandra that perhaps Maggy was really married after all. She asked the question.

"No," was the regretful reply. "But I often forget I'm not. There's not much difference when you're fond of a man. You get to love him so much that you don't feel the law could bring you any closer. All the same I'd like to be married to him really. I'd like to look after his clothes, and keep his things tidy—and have his children." She flushed and got up rather hurriedly. "Ready? Come along!"

In the narrow hall they encountered Mrs. Bell. She had been lying in wait, and now advanced with her be-ringed and not over-clean hand outstretched.

"Always pleased to see you, Miss Delamere," she beamed. "I'm sure Miss Hersey's been quite lost without you. No chance of your coming back to us, I suppose?" She smiled knowingly.

"You never know," said Maggy lightly. "Here's something to—buy shrimps with," she supplemented, winking at Alexandra.

Mrs. Bell gave an astonished and delighted look at the coin before her fingers closed on it.

"Well, you are a dear! I always did say you had a heart of gold—"

"Not when my purse had only coppers in it," Maggy laughed.

"What did you give her? She looked quite surprised," Alexandra inquired directly the street door had shut.

"A sovereign."

"But why?"

"Swank, my dear. Get in."

The car moved off.

"How do you like it?" she asked. "It's a Primus. Fred's got an interest in them. I wish he'd make me an agent. He's had my photo taken in one for an ad. They've got electric starting and lighting and only cost two-seventy-five. Lean back, dear. Isn't it comfy? Oh, I wonder what you'll think of my flat. You'll like the bathroom, I know. Hot water service at any time of the day or night. That's in the prospectus."

Alexandra laughed.

"May I have a bath?"

"Of course. Whenever you like. I thought you'd ask."

She could not contain her pride in her new home. Alexandra, unable to help contrasting it with her own poor room, liked its light daintiness, its exquisite tidiness. Maggy would have delighted in doing the whole work of a cottage of her own in the country. She was by nature domesticated. The personal touch was everywhere visible about the flat, especially to Alexandra who knew her. Maggy had a mania for crochet work. It was to be seen in all directions. Towels, mats, chair covers, everything that could have crochet sewn on to it was so ornamented. A large open workbox, crammed to overflowing with a medley of fancy-work, testified to the hours she gave to her needle and the many directions in which she made use of it. A mongrel terrier gave them a violent welcome as they came in, and a dissipated-looking cat blinked at them lazily from the sofa where it lay on a cushion. Maggy introduced the two animals.

"This is Mr. Onions," she said. "I saw him eating one out of a dustbin and brought him here. He was starved, Lexie. Now he lives on the fat of the land, like me. And he's no breed, like me. Neither is Mrs. Slightly. She's Slightly because she's slightly soiled, and never will clean herself, and she's called 'Mrs.' because she's not married, but ought to be. Isn't it curious, Lexie? Slightly and Onions are absolute gutter-snipes, but they've taken to cushions and cream as if they'd never known anything else. Fred can't bear them. He wanted me to have a Pekinese with a pedigree, but I haven't a pedigree, so I don't want an animal with one. Slightly and Onions are such grateful devils, too. Would you really like a bath now? After you've had it we'll have tea. China tea at four and six a pound, my dear! Think of that! I believe I could drink tea dust and enjoy it if I knew it was expensive."

While Alexandra luxuriated in her bath, reckless for once of the quantity of water she used, Maggy took the opportunity of providing something exceptional in the way of tea. It began with poached eggs and finished with strawberries and cream. Maggy was not a bit hungry; she had lunched late with Woolf. But she knew Alexandra had been denying herself food and would eat heartily so long as she could do so in company. So she crammed loyally, ignoring the physical discomfort it inflicted on her.

Finally she put Alexandra into the most comfortable of her chairs and drew another close to it. Onions lay at her feet, Slightly was curled on her lap.

"Now tell me what you've been doing to get an engagement," she said.

"There's nothing to tell. No luck anywhere, that's all."

Maggy sighed. "I wish you could live here. That's impossible, I know. But why be so proud? Let me lend you a few pounds."

"I can't. I've not used the money you left. I meant to give it back to you, but I forgot."

"You make me angry. Isn't my money good enough? I'm sorry, Lexie. You've got such cracked ideas."

Alexandra decided to be frank.

"It isn't that," she said. "I would take your money if I dared and be grateful for it. I would sooner borrow from you than from any one. But if I began to borrow, even from you, I should find it more difficult to keep straight. I've never said as much to anybody before, but I don't want you to think I won't take it because it's you who are offering it."

"I think I know what you mean. Once you've taken the first step you're afraid you'll go on slithering. But you've got to take some sort of step to get a job. De Freyne said we were shabby, Lexie; but if he could see you now! What's the use of being nearly the same size as your best friend if you won't let her lend you a dress or two? Answer me that. That's not borrowing. That oughtn't to hurt your pride. We used to swop things. And I've got a dress and a hat, and a pair of shoes in the other room that are too small for me. You must have them, Lexie. No one'll look at you as you are. When managers see a girl looking shabby they only think of the reputation of their stage-door. If you'll just let me give you a leg-up toward a job! Let me drive you round to the agencies in the car instead of walking. I won't take 'no.' It's Maggy's call this time."

She prevailed in the end, forced the new frock on Alexandra and the shoes that were too small; stuffed other things into the parcel when she wasn't looking—a veil and some gloves, a pot of Bovril from her sideboard, a tin of biscuits, a bottle of scent and other things. Alexandra found them all when she got home. They dropped out of the most unexpected places. There was a box of chocolates in one sleeve, some very nice soap in another. A silk petticoat was wrapped round a bottle of lemon squash. It was so like Maggy's indiscriminate largesse. Where she loved, she was constrained to give, always with both hands. Before Alexandra left she showed her a photograph.

"Fred," she said. "Isn't he handsome? He's got one white tuft in his black hair. I wish you knew him, Lexie." Alexandra had all along been afraid she was going to say that. "I wish you would meet him." Her voice was wistful. "I'm so proud of you. I've talked about you to him such a lot. I believe if he were to see you he'd—think more of me," she added humbly.

"Doesn't he think a lot of you?" asked Alexandra, surprised. She put down the photo. The face, handsome, albeit brutal, did not appeal to her.

"In a way. But I don't think he really believes you're a lady ... that a lady would be real friends with me. It's difficult to explain."

Alexandra felt sure she would not like Woolf. She instantly resented what she suspected must be his attitude toward Maggy.

"You'd be doing me a favor," Maggy said. "Would you mind very much?"

Alexandra shrank from meeting Woolf because instinctively she guessed the kind of man he was. The photograph almost told her. It showed her a man, not a gentleman, yet whose money bought him the right of way amongst gentlemen, the type of man who would assume that every woman, not a lady, had her price. She felt sorry for Maggy.

"I will meet him if you're very keen about it," she said at length. It seemed so grudging, so ungrateful to refuse the one thing required of her. Maggy would have done, had done, more than that for her. She acknowledged the concession now with a spontaneous hug.

"I'll fix a day. We'll have lunch together," she said. "It makes me so happy, Lexie, to think I've got you again—my friend. Men say women can't be friends. They don't know. Have another look round before you go. You do think it nice, don't you? Fred's taken it on a three years' agreement."

"Is he married?" asked Alexandra suddenly.

"No."

"Then surely he might marry you."

"He would never marry me," said Maggy. "I don't talk about it. I don't think of it. If he thought I'd got such an idea in my head I don't believe he'd want me any longer. He'd hate to be tied down to anything or anybody for longer than a three years' agreement."

An oppression fell on Alexandra. The room, which had been flooded by the afternoon sun, was in shade now. It looked colder, less intimate. One saw that it was a room whose furniture had been provided en bloc by a Company—the Company that owned the flats. There was no individual taste about it. There was nothing permanent about it. It was not a home, and was not meant to be one.

"But after three years—" Alexandra began anxiously.

Maggy shut her eyes.

"If you ever love a man," she said, "you'll know one doesn't think in years. One simply feels—in minutes."

XIV

Alexandra did not have to avail herself of Maggy's offer of her car for the purpose of visiting the various agencies. That evening she received a post-card from Stannard requesting her to call on Mrs. Hugh Lambert at her house in South Kensington. Mrs. Lambert's name was familiar to her as that of the wife of a leading actor-manager on whose stage she was never seen. She toured the provinces with plays of her own, while he remained in London or visited New York, in both of which cities he was the idol of a vast number of impressionable women.

You could hardly pick up an illustrated paper without finding Hugh Lambert's photograph in it. You could buy picture post-cards of him at every shop where such things are on sale—full-face, in profile, in costume, out of costume, head and shoulders, half-length, full-length. How he was able to devote so much time to being photographed and yet get a reasonable amount of sleep was a mystery that did not seem capable of explanation. He was immensely popular and very good-looking in an effeminate way. Before arriving at the dignity of actor-management his talent for poetic interpretation had been freely recognized. But success had spoilt him. Now he was mannered. Costume parts were his hobby. The story went that, at one of his dress-rehearsals in which he was figuring as a Roman general in gilded armor, he asked a lady present what she thought of his appearance, and that her answer had been: "Oh, Mr. Lambert, what a girl you are for clothes!"

As Lambert's reputation had increased, so that of his wife had diminished. At one time she had promised to develop into an actress of renown. But for some reason difficult to understand she never quite succeeded. The critics said she lacked "personal magnetism," that touch of attractiveness that gets the actress's individuality across the footlights. The fact remains that she failed to please the public in the big roles that fell to her in her husband's productions. London dropped her, and Hugh Lambert's name blazed alone in colored electric lights across the front of his theater.

Then came a whisper of his marital infidelity. The couple separated. From this time onwards Mrs. Lambert was seldom seen on the London stage.

Her career was a disappointing one. None knew it better than herself. Technically and emotionally she was a finer actress than her husband's leading lady, finer indeed than most of the leading ladies of other managers. That she became a great attraction in the Provinces was nothing to her. She loathed the Provinces, their inadequate theaters, their inferior hotels, and the incessant traveling. At thirty-five she found herself as it were back at the collar-work of her earlier days of struggle, and without its compensations. Then, conjugal affection and the stimulus of ambition still unachieved had made touring bearable and often enjoyable because she shared it with Lambert.

Now she was alone.

She hated the sordid manufacturing towns and their unsophisticated audiences, the eternal sameness of the self-vaunted watering-places, the dull spas where fashionable frequenters of the pump room would condescend to patronize her whom they would not pay to see in London. She was a tired woman.

To her came Alexandra at eleven o'clock on the morning appointed. She had quite forgotten, until her maid brought her up the card, that she had asked Stannard to find her a small-part actress who would also be useful as a companion. She saw Alexandra at once.

The impression the latter first got of her was a pathetic one. She never forgot it. Mrs. Lambert was sitting up in bed. The small oval of her face was too pale for health, and her dark hair accentuated her look of fragility. On the dressing-table lay a rich copper-colored transformation.

"I hope you don't mind seeing me in bed," she said. "I hate keeping people waiting. It's so selfish. In my time I've sat on dress-baskets outside dressing-room doors waiting for hours till some selfish wretch took it into his head to see me, although he'd made an appointment and knew perfectly well I was there. I vowed I'd never treat any one in the same way. Sit down somewhere and tell me about yourself. What have you done?"

"Very little," Alexandra confessed. "I'm almost an amateur."

Mrs. Lambert made a wry face. "Not a moneyed one, I hope?"

"I've got forty pounds a year."

"Officer's daughter's pension?"

"Yes." Alexandra looked surprised. "How did you know?"

"I'm one myself. Officer's daughters can't do much when they're left stranded. They teach if they're ugly and sensible enough, and they go on the stage if they're sufficiently pretty and foolish. How long have you been at it?"

"Three months."

"And how long in an engagement?"

"I rehearsed for three weeks at the Pall Mall in the chorus.... I wasn't wanted."

"I don't wonder. I can't quite see a girl like you in the Pall Mall chorus. You must have had rather an unpleasant time of it there. Were you worried by men? Before I married I used to wear a wedding ring. In my innocence, I thought it would be something of a protection, but it had quite a contrary effect." She gave Alexandra a sympathetic look. "Would you really like to come on tour with me?"

"Mr. Stannard didn't say what you required," said Alexandra. "Perhaps you won't think I'm experienced enough."

"Well, I want some one to thread ribbons through my underclothes, to sleep in my room when I see bogies, and play a small part—a servant flicking chairs. I can't promise that it will increase your theatrical reputation, but perhaps when you leave me, some minor manager might be induced to give you a decent part on the strength of your having been in Mrs. Hugh Lambert's company. You'll go about with me. I'll pay all hotel expenses and give you thirty shillings a week. If you're hard up for clothes, say so. I've always got a lot more than I want, and as I send them to the Theatrical Ladies' Guild you needn't feel under any obligation about taking them. I hope you'll decide to come. I should like you to. You won't be overworked and I'll treat you decently. I'm not a cat."

"I'd love to come if you'll have me."

"Well, we'll consider it arranged then. Stannard will see to the contract. The tour is for three months. I leave town in about a fortnight, but you might as well come and stop here in the meantime. We shall get to know each other and rub corners off. Would you care to? Then come back to-night, somewhere about six. You can help me with my shopping and packing. I'll keep you busy!" She held out a thin artistic hand.

There was no maid in the hall, so Alexandra opened the door to let herself out. A man stood on the steps, about to ring the bell. He was thirty or so, of an aristocratic type. They both hesitated for a moment. Then he asked:

"Can you tell me if Mrs. Lambert is in?"

"Yes—I think so," she said.

"Would you mind telling her I'd like to take her to lunch. I'll wait if she isn't down yet."

"Yes, certainly," said Alexandra. It struck her that he seemed to be aware of the late hours she kept. It argued intimacy. "What name shall I say?"

"Oh—Chalfont."

She went upstairs again, knocked at the door, and found Mrs. Lambert with the morning's papers on the bed. She was reading of her husband's projected departure for America with his successful repertoire. There were tears in her eyes.

"I shall have to take to glasses," she said, looking up. "I can't read without weeping. What is it?"

"Mr. Chalfont is downstairs. He wants to know if you will lunch with him."

"Please tell Lord Chalfont," said Mrs. Lambert in a low voice, "that it's the anniversary of my separation from my husband, and that I'm lunching on my heart. But he can come to dinner to-night if he likes. Ask him to put you in a taxi."

She returned to the newspapers.

XV

"Lexie's coming to lunch to-morrow," Maggy informed Woolf. "We must give her a good one, Fred, and you'll behave, won't you, D.D.?"

"D.D." in Maggy's language of love stood for Dearest Darling. She was not free from the modern, time-saving habit, set by trade advertisements and the halfpenny papers, of abbreviating words in common use down to their lowest denomination.

"So she's woken up to the fact that there may be something to be got out of you," yawned Woolf.

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that, Fred. Lexie couldn't be on the make-haste. She's not made that way."

"Sounds as if she's too good and uninteresting to live."

"She isn't uninteresting. You'll like her. She's very pretty. Do be good and do me credit."

"Well ... I like that!" Woolf stared at her, half-amused.

"I mean, don't say the things you say to me. She's sensitive."

"My dear girl, don't teach me how to talk to women. Judging by what you've told me I'm inclined to think your copybook Lexie is a deep 'un. I don't think I'll come, anyway."

"Oh, but you must. I've asked her on purpose to meet you. I want her to see what a duck you are, and to like you, and not to think me bad just because I let you wipe your shoes on me."

She slipped to the ground and sat at his feet. Woolf liked her in her devoted moods. Like many another unworthy man, adulation gave him peculiar satisfaction. Maggy was rarely flippant now. She loved Woolf with a passion that almost frightened her. It was not a passion of the mind. He dominated her in other ways. She was too transparent to hide how much she cared. She gave too much. It was her pleasure, when she knew he was going to stay several hours with her, to take off his shoes and put on the pumps which with a few other things he kept at the flat.

She commenced to unlace his shoes now. Then she dragged his pumps from under the sofa, kissing them first before she put them on his feet.

"You funny creature. What makes you do that?" he asked, well enough aware of her reason, but desirous of extracting an expression of it.

"Because I adore you. I feel like Mary Magdalene or whoever it was who broke the precious ointment all over her Master's feet. Oh, yes, I know who it was. But do you think she wouldn't have done it just the same if He had been an ordinary man? He was her lord. She never thought of Him as everybody's Lord. That isn't blasphemy. It's love."

"You don't know how I love you," she went on ardently. "Men think they know how to love, but they never love as a woman loves. I love you so much that first of all I wish I had been your mother, so that I might have held you in my arms when you were tiny and given you dill water for your tummy aches, and bathed and powdered you.... And next I wish I had been your twin sister to have grown up with you.... And next I wish I had been the first woman in your life.... And next I wish.... Oh, and I'm thankful to be—just yours." She sat up, and went on in rather a tense voice. "I wonder if you'll ever get tired of me. Could you, Fred?"

"Well, I'm not yet." He gave a playful pull at her loosened hair.

"And treat me like men treat the A.F.'s in story-books."

"What's an A.F.?"

"Abandoned female, you goose. That's what I am. And when you've finished with me will you leave me to starve in a garret while you live in a mansion with a beautiful and good wife? And will I haunt your doorstep and throw vitriol in your belovedest face?"

"What nonsense you're talking, Maggy."

"It isn't all nonsense. It isn't only in the story-books that women do that. They do it in real life too. I read about a case in the paper not long ago, and the judge asked the girl why she did it. She answered 'Because I love him.' The silly judge said: 'That's a funny way of showing love,' and there was laughter in Court, in brackets. Laughter in Court! I expect it sounded to that girl like laughter in hell. I know what she must have felt. I daresay she lived so long with the man and loved him so much that she felt as good as his wife. Then when he left her, she must have gone mad, poor thing."

She got up and stood in front of him, looking very sweet and alluring.

"How long will you love me, I wonder?" she mused.

Woolf drew her on to his knees.

"So long as you look like you do now."

"You mean so long as I'm pretty? Wouldn't you love me if I looked like poor Mrs. Slightly? She's losing her fur."

"What's the matter with Mrs. Slightly?" he asked.

He did not care for Maggy's mongrel pets, and his tone was not encouraging. It put Maggy on her guard. She had a premonition that it would be best to hide Mrs. Slightly's secret until it could no longer be hidden.

"I'm not quite sure," she said.

"Where is she?"

"I left her in the bathroom. I'll get her. She hasn't had her supper yet."

She went out of the room. Woolf heard her calling the cat softly, then came a smothered exclamation, and she called to him eagerly, excitedly.

"Oh, Fred! Fred! Come here! Come and look!"

He followed her. She was standing before Mrs. Slightly's basket. The cat was purring, its eyes half-shut, tired after the tremendous function of motherhood. Six little rat-like, squirming bodies lay against her own.

"Six of them!" breathed Maggy triumphantly. "Aren't they lovely! Wasn't it worth going on the tiles for, Mrs. Dearest? The cat's cradle is full, full!"

Woolf disengaged her arm from his.

"It's disgusting," he said angrily. "You ought to have got rid of her before this, or—or kept her in. You can't keep the kittens. They'll have to be drowned."

Maggy looked at him blankly.

"Aren't you pleased?" she asked, surprised.

"Pleased! At a sight like that! Besides, you told me a lie. I won't have lies. You must have known before you went to the theater that the cat had had kittens—"

"I didn't. Oh, how dare you say so! Do you think I'd have gone out and left her all these hours without any milk by her side if I'd guessed they were coming so soon?"

She flew off, and came back with a saucer of bread and milk. She put it on the floor and went down on her hands and knees beside the newly-born animals. There was a rapt expression on her face.

"I don't think I'll stop," said Woolf huffily, and moved to the door.

He expected that she would call him back, but to his surprise she did not even look up. She was wholly absorbed with the natural phenomenon. For the first time in their intercourse she was oblivious of his presence. She did not even hear him go. She knelt entranced.

At last a sigh broke from her. She became articulate.

"Oh, you babies!" she whispered. "Oh, you little, little things!"

XVI

Maggy looked forward with immense eagerness to the luncheon at which Woolf was to meet Alexandra. She had a double reason for desiring it. In a sense, Alexandra's presence would mean that she no longer disapproved of the connection: it would give it a certain sanction, an authority it would otherwise lack. Her other reason concerned Woolf himself. In spite of his assertions to the contrary, she was sure he knew how to appreciate a woman of culture. Once he saw how different Alexandra was from the girls he usually met, his regard for herself would grow stronger, if only because she had the advantage of the friendship of such a superior being.

She was not altogether wrong in her assumption that Woolf liked a lady, although it must be admitted he seldom felt at ease with one. He was only himself with déclassé women, or a girl of Maggy's class, who had few sensibilities to shock. All the same, he was contemptuous of the women whose society he frequented, and he had a sneaking admiration for the women of the more sedate world to which he did not belong. It was likely that he would ultimately marry a lady, if he married at all, since he considered that women, other than the class that will not give itself away except in the bond of holy matrimony, were not worthy of any such honor. He was a cad, of course, but a cad of ambitions and brains.

Maggy's rhapsodies about Alexandra left him cold. He did not credit Maggy with being much of a judge concerning matters pertaining to the aristocracy. He did not believe that Alexandra had the breeding Maggy was always vaunting. He merely supposed that she was more subtle than Maggy, one who could ape superior manners, much as an astute parlormaid can.

The fact that this friend so exclusive, according to Maggy, should overcome her scruples sufficiently to meet him, knowing perfectly well in what relation he stood to Maggy, was sufficient confirmation that she had never had any scruples of importance to overcome. He was amused that Maggy could be so hoodwinked by one of her own sex. But then Maggy was a little fool—pretty and taking, and that was all. He was too egregious to appreciate that real friendship for Maggy, friendship which overrode personal considerations, had induced Alexandra to accept the invitation.

She turned up at the flat at the time appointed. They were to lunch in the restaurant attached.

Woolf could not help being impressed with her appearance. He could not deny that she was really exceedingly pretty. Her features were quite perfect—white brow, small straight nose, well-shaped mouth. He saw all this at a glance, the cool, scrutinizing glance of valuation with which he favored every attractive member of her sex, whether a duchess in her carriage in Bond Street or a shop-girl on her way to work.

Maggy introduced her friend and her lover with mutual pride. The tone in which she did it left no doubt that what she would have loved to say was:

"This is Lexie. Isn't she lovely? You know she is;" and then with a certain dubiousness: "My Fred.... Do like him. Surely you must think him handsome."

"Delighted to meet any friend of Maggy's," said Woolf cordially. "Been a long time coming round, haven't you?"

Alexandra instantly resented the unnecessary familiarity he put into his tone, but for Maggy's sake she refrained from showing it. Woolf was no better and no worse than she had expected to find him. He was merely vulgar, from the salmon-pink handkerchief in his breast-pocket to the too-valuable pin in his tie.

"I came as soon as I was asked," she answered equably. "Maggy and I are old friends. There's no reason why I should keep away from her."

"Of course, there isn't. Only Maggy thought you didn't approve of—this little show." He waved his arm round the room.

"It's a dear little flat. I like it very much."

Woolf laughed loudly. "The flat's all right. Perhaps I should have said our little ménage à deux. There's no harm in it. Everybody's doing it, aren't they, Maggy? Come along to lunch, you girls."

If Alexandra could have run away then and there she would have done so. She guessed what she was in for. Maggy was looking nervous. She wanted Alexandra and Fred to "get on," to like each other. She had done her best to make her lover avoid the sort of conversation Alexandra would not like. She was dreadfully afraid he was going to spoil it all.

As Woolf led the way down to the restaurant she slipped behind and whispered:

"Lexie, don't be shocked if Fred talks a bit. I've told him not to because you don't like it; but if he forgets—"

Alexandra gave her arm a little squeeze. It heartened her. Her adoring eyes went to the big figure, striding on in front of them.

"Doesn't he look a dear?" she asked. "Could I help it? Fancy him wanting me!"

Her abjectness was a revelation to Alexandra. She had not conceived it possible that cheeky, masterful Maggy, could have surrendered her independence so completely. In this man's company she was quieter, more subdued, ever watchful to please, to laugh when he laughed—a little too much perhaps, too ready to applaud his most commonplace remarks as witticisms, his untasteful jokes as gems of wit. She had a mind of her own. She hardly showed it. His assertive manhood seemed to have swamped her personality. All the time she was considering him. He scarcely considered her at all.

Conversation did not run freely during the first part of the meal. Woolf wanted to shine in Alexandra's eyes as a good host. He showed it by bullying the waiters over trivialities, until she began to feel quite uncomfortable. His was not the quietly assertive tone of the man who knows what he wants and how to order it. It was obvious to the very attendants themselves that he blustered in order to draw attention to his importance, just as he would tip excessively and yet argue over a trifling item on the bill.

Over his coffee and a cigarette his manner showed some improvement. Still, he had not taken Alexandra's measure. She was telling Maggy of her sudden luck in obtaining an engagement, and that she was going to stay with Mrs. Lambert. Maggy was delighted.

"Oh, I'm glad!" she said enthusiastically. "It's tip-top, Lexie. Fred, did you hear that? Lexie's going on tour with Mrs. Lambert. Isn't it splendid for her?"

"Splendid for Mrs. Lambert. Rather!" concurred Woolf, with heavy gallantry. "You'll have plenty of opportunities of ingenue parts with the lady," he went on, knowingly. "You'll suit her to a T. You'll play propriety, of course! Dashed funny, that."

"I don't understand," said Alexandra.

"Oh, come, we're none of us as good as we look. Of course you've heard about Mrs. Lambert and Lord Chalfont? I told you everybody was doing it."

Her crimson face and indignant eyes did not warn him of the blunder he was committing. Maggy was playing nervously with the crystallized sugar, afraid of angering Woolf by stemming the tide of his untactful garrulity.

He bent forward, lowering his voice. "It's like this," he said, and began to give details of a liaison which Alexandra had no reason to credit, details which were offensive and unnecessary. She was genuinely shocked. Involuntarily she pushed back her chair while he was still talking and made the first excuse she could think of.

"I shall have to be going now, Maggy. I'm so sorry. I—I'm late for an appointment as it is. I—I'll come and say good-by before I go on tour."

"Must you really go?" asked Maggy weakly. She knew that Alexandra could stand no more. It meant that her poor little attempt at concord between the only two people she cared about had come to nought. "Fred, tell the waiter to order a taxicab."

"I won't wait for that," said Alexandra. "I shall be too late. I ought to go at once. I shall find one in the street."

She managed a reassuring smile to show Maggy that though her feelings were outraged she meant to get over it, and let it make no difference to their friendship. Now that she had met Woolf and learnt the sort of man he was, nothing would have induced her to waver in allegiance to Maggy. Maggy needed her though she might never say it. She knew she could not bring herself to meet Woolf again, even for Maggy's sake.

He insisted on escorting her out of the restaurant and putting her into a cab. He was aware now from her almost monosyllabic rejoinders that he had made a mistake, spoken in bad taste. It was suddenly obvious to him that she was a lady—the "real thing," and that he had offended her. Simultaneously with this came the desire to know more of her.

"I believe you're annoyed," he said. "Have I been a bit too plain-spoken?"

"Here's my taxi," she said, disregarding the question.

He helped her in, knowing that she disapproved of him. A natural premonition told him that she would not be desirous of meeting him again unless he could convince her he was aware of his error and regretted it. He was distinctly taken with her, more now than ever that her fastidiousness made her difficult. He leant toward her and spoke almost anxiously.

"I'd like to meet you again. Can't you dine with me one night before you go? I'm sorry if I've offended you.... I made a mistake. I thought you were Maggy's sort."

The apology, so disloyal to Maggy, as well as insulting to herself, inflamed her.

"You unspeakable cad!" she said.

Woolf returned to Maggy rather red in the face. She had left the restaurant and was waiting for him in her sitting-room. She was afraid to reproach him, and yet anxious that he should know he had blundered. She was terribly disappointed.

"You shocked Lexie," she told him, and waited to see what he would say.

He made no answer.

"You thought her pretty?" she went on.

Woolf was biting his finger-nails savagely.

"Didn't you?" she persisted.

"Oh, yes. Very pretty."

He had been repulsed, snubbed, and was rankling under the smart of it. It made him turn to the girl who had nothing but devotion for him for a salve to his wounded vanity. The girl who had just gone was provokingly desirable because of her cool eyes, her scornful mouth, her aloofness, the disdain of her. But Maggy was all his, living for him.

He took her in his arms almost savagely.

"You're worth ten of her," he exclaimed; and in his irritation believed what he said.

Her body relaxed submissively in the grip of his arms.

"Oh, my God, how I love you!" she murmured, trembling.

She laid her cheek against his and stroked his hand. "Will you do me a favor, Fred?" she went on presently, unconsciously taking advantage of what she regarded as a soft mood.

"What is it? A bit more money than I give you?"

"No. I don't want more money. I've got enough. I've never been greedy that way, have I?"

"No. More silly you. Women should make hay while the sun shines."

She looked at him with soft eyes.

"When the sun shines some women only want to let it warm them through and through."

"Well, what's the favor?"

She pointed at the basket containing Mrs. Slightly and her offspring, which Woolf had not noticed.

"You asked me to have them drowned. I'd rather find homes for them. Please, D.D.?"

"But, good Lord—why?"

She drew away from him, walked over to the basket, and leant over it, as if communing with Mrs. Slightly.

"I had a dream last night," she said. "It's because of that I—I want Mrs. Slightly's kittens to live. I dreamt that I was a mother cat, only in my dream I had but one little kitty. But it was all mine and I loved it. It had soft black hair with a white tuft in it—like its father." She looked straight at the white lock that was so singular a feature of Woolf's dark hair. "And one afternoon when I had come back from a stroll I went to the basket to find that my Kitty was gone. I mewed for it everywhere. There was nowhere that I did not look. I couldn't possibly, as a cat, know that the human I looked up to, the giver of food and all good things could do anything so evil as to make away with the precious thing. It was a nightmare. In my dream, I was searching, searching for hours. My cat-heart was breaking. When I woke up, I was mewing! Don't laugh, Fred. And I made up my mind that I couldn't have Mrs. Slightly's kittens drowned. Oh, the people who drown kittens and take away calves from cows and lambs from sheep, must be hard-hearted beasts. Why, if I had a baby, a little soft warm baby, and somebody wanted to deprive me of it—Fred!" She caught at his arm.

Startled by the sharp note of appeal in her voice he put a startled question.

Maggy had cast her arms protectively round the basket where Mrs. Slightly and her kittens slept, all unconscious of issues concerning their fate. Her shoulders were shaking. She was moved by some extraordinary emotion. But when she turned to Woolf again she was calm.

"I am quite sure," she said.

XVII

The change from the drab surroundings of the King's Cross Road to Mrs. Lambert's pretty house in South Kensington made Alexandra feel as though she had escaped from purgatory. Hers was the temperament that withers in a sad environment and expands in a bright one. Whilst in her lodgings she had had to put up with dinginess and discomfort: Albert Place was the antithesis of everything unpleasant. She seemed to breathe more freely there.

The house was small, Georgian and white. Great wire baskets overflowing with pink climbing geraniums hung from its porch and balcony. Between its green iron railings and the front door was a strip of well-kept garden full of shrubs and ferns kept fresh and glistening with a constant supply of moisture.

Inside it was equally delightful. Mrs. Lambert had a nice taste for form and color. Where Maggy would have put hot-toned plush and burnished copper the actress had quiet soft brocades and silver. Her furniture consisted mainly of delicate Georgian mahogany as decorative as it was comfortable. Alexandra reveled in it all.

Then again, the change meant relief from anxiety. She had something to do, she would be paid for it. For three months or more she would be free from continuous alarm about the morrow. Here was occupation, cleanliness, comfort, good food, agreeable companionship. Over and over again she kept reminding herself of it.

The days that followed her arrival were busy ones. The tour was to start in a fortnight. There was much shopping to do, packing, preparation for it. The small part Alexandra was to play, that of a parlormaid, did not take up much of her time rehearsing. Mrs. Lambert did not rehearse at all. Her understudy relieved her of that duty. Occasionally she would spend an hour watching her company and conferring with her manager, but so long as things went on smoothly, as they generally did, she avoided the theatrical side of her affairs as much as she could.

The fact was, as Alexandra quickly found out, Mrs. Lambert disliked the stage. She loved acting because she had a gift for it. But she was not eaten up with her own achievements and was quite free from the artificial manner and the petty interests of average stage-folk. Her chief pleasure lay in getting away from London in her excellent Panhard limousine on every available occasion and forgetting that she belonged to the stage. Alexandra shared many a pleasant drive with her that hot end of July, lunching in the shade of some quiet Surrey lane or the more deserted parts of Richmond Park.

A day or two before they were to start on tour they met Maggy in a Regent Street shop. Maggy's appearance was very striking. Her coloring just now was more vivid than usual. She bloomed.

"Oh, Lexie!" she exclaimed, "I was half afraid you'd gone off without saying good-by."

"You know I wouldn't have done that," Alexandra protested.

"I haven't given her a moment to herself," put in Mrs. Lambert. She was looking at Maggy with the frank admiration of an unjealous woman. "Are you great friends, you two?" she asked.

"We used to chum together," Maggy said. "Lexie is my patron saint."

"Well, then you must see more of her before she goes. Won't you come and lunch with us to-morrow?—seventy-four, Albert Place."

"I should love to," Maggy answered eagerly. "May I really?"

"Yes, do," said Mrs. Lambert. "Half-past one."

She nodded, and Maggy moved away to join Woolf, who had come in. He glanced curiously at Alexandra as she and Mrs. Lambert left the shop.

"That's Mrs. Lambert, with Lexie," Maggy told him. "I was just talking to them. Mrs. Lambert asked me to lunch at her house. Isn't it kind of her? She looked at me so nicely too. Our hearts seemed to shake hands."

Woolf had scarcely noticed Mrs. Lambert. He had only had eyes for Alexandra, and was incensed because she had not acknowledged him.

"Your precious particular friend cut me," he said. "I suppose you saw that."

"I'm sure she couldn't have seen you. Why should she cut you?"

Woolf had his own reasons for surmising why she had done so, but he was not going to give them.

"I should like you to drop that friendship," he said vindictively.

"Drop Lexie? Me? You're joking!"

"I'm not."

Maggy very seldom argued with Woolf. Her subjugation was nearly complete, but she still had some spirit left. She showed it now.

"I gave up living with Lexie to come to you," she reminded him.

"Do you regret it?"

"I don't, but I probably shall. Anyway, instead of turning up her nose at me she's behaved like a darling. I couldn't go back on her. Why, I—I'd rather have drowned Mrs. Slightly's kittens with my own hands than been so mean as that!"

"Well, you needn't lunch with her at Mrs. Lambert's. You might meet Lord Chalfont there."

"It's not in the least likely. But what would it matter if I did?"

"I don't like him."

"I thought you said you didn't know him?"

"I've never spoken to the bounder, if that's what you mean," said Woolf testily.

"I don't understand you. You generally don't care what I do or where I go when I'm not with you. When I see Lexie again I shall tell her you're huffy with her."

Now Alexandra had not deliberately meant to cut Woolf. She would not have done so out of consideration to Maggy; but as she had only seen his reflection in one of the shop mirrors she did not consider it necessary to turn round and bow to him. Besides, she knew he was the sort of man Mrs. Lambert would not care about, and it was quite likely that if she had acknowledged him he would have presumed on her good nature.

"What a lovely girl!" Mrs. Lambert said, when they were in the street. "She's a joy to look at. Who was the man who joined her? I seem to know his face. He looked Jewish."

"His name is Woolf."

"I wonder if he's the person who is exploiting Primus cars. He owns some racehorses too, and a sporting paper."

"It's the same," said Alexandra.

"Lord Chalfont knows more about him than I do. He had him turned out of his club. It's an exclusive one, and some thoughtless young fellow had brought him in. I don't think he's very nice, dear. What a pity he knows your friend."

Alexandra hesitated. She guessed that Mrs. Lambert had asked Maggy out of consideration to herself. But if she knew that Woolf and Maggy were intimate perhaps she would wish to rescind that invitation. Alexandra did not want to be disloyal to Maggy, nor yet to let Mrs. Lambert be deceived about her.

"Maggy thinks a lot of him," she hesitated. "I don't want to talk about her because she is my friend, but—"

Mrs. Lambert laid her hand on Alexandra's for a moment.

"The majority of us have got a 'but' in our lives," she said in a curious tone, and then added with apparent irrelevance, "Did I tell you that Lord Chalfont will be staying with us on tour?"

XVIII

Maggy meant to disregard Woolf's injunction against her going to Mrs. Lambert's. The temptation to see Alexandra was too strong to resist. Moreover, she thought it likely that he would forget having made it. Then, if she went and he still objected, she would admit having disobeyed him. She would not lie about it. She never did tell lies; not on moral grounds but because lying was cowardly and she did not know the meaning of cowardice.

Woolf had been a little overbearing with her lately, too much the master. She did not mind that sort of tyranny so long as it implied fondness, but she had a feeling that he was changing towards her. For one thing, she knew he was annoyed at her condition. That hurt her abominably. In books she had read of husbands and wives being drawn closer together, of estranged couples becoming reconciled under similar conditions. Indeed, she had hoped for special tenderness from him directly he knew they existed. She had even tried to delude herself into the hope that he might marry her.

It was not that she wanted any legal hold on him. She would not have loved Woolf any more because of marriage. But if he married her it would be a guarantee of his love, which just now she had reason to doubt. That was all. The rights which marriage confer on a woman meant nothing to her. She only wanted to get rid of the nightmare dread of separation from him. Any other girl similarly situated would have stood out for marriage, but Maggy had too much pride for that. She recoiled from a more than possible refusal.

She felt thrown back upon herself, lonely in spirit. A faintness assailed her whenever she thought of what she would have to undergo without a soul knowing of it except Woolf. And on this subject, so closely connecting them, Woolf was cold and remote. He would have shown more concern had she cut her finger. She wanted comfort. It would have helped her to confide in some sympathetic woman. She wondered whether she dared tell Alexandra, and decided that it would not be fair or even expedient. Virginal Alexandra would not understand, or if she understood she would be more afraid than Maggy herself. Obviously she could neither reassure nor comfort her, since the thing was right out of her experience, and always would be. Poor Maggy! Her abundant vitality, her pulsing affections, made motherhood infinitely desirable to her. As a child she had scarcely had time to play with dolls because she was always on the stage, but she had always yearned over babies. Nature, which takes no account of the individual, concerned only with the reproduction of the race, had intended her to be a mother. Man-made shibboleths were to deny her that right.

She took great pains in dressing for her visit to Mrs. Lambert's. She was free from the spirit of feminine emulation, but she wanted to look her best, to please Alexandra's critical taste, so that she might remember how she looked that day, in case they might never see each other again. Maggy had never before been inclined to depression, but the clammy fingers of morbidity touched her now.

She elected to wear a frock of sprigged muslin and a simple hat that she had trimmed herself. The hat was in part a concession to Woolf, for she took pleasure in such tasks, and liked him to see that she could excel in them. Thus dressed, she was quite perfect. Her coloring was so vivid and her figure so mature that extreme simplicity suited her. But she was not quite satisfied with the effect. Her eyes roved over the dressing-table in search of some finishing touch, and came to a stop at her jewel-case. From it she took a diamond bracelet Woolf had given her, and put it on. He had bestowed it on her with great impressiveness, and she accordingly believed it to be very valuable.

When she reached Albert Place neither Mrs. Lambert nor Alexandra was in. They had been detained somewhere and had telephoned through to say so. The maid showed her into the drawing room. Somewhat to her dismay she found it occupied by a man. She did not know him by sight, but she immediately came to the conclusion that he must be Lord Chalfont. She felt awkward, uncertain whether it was "proper" to speak or not. She had not encountered any men of rank before, and had not the average chorus girl's assurance with male members of the peerage.

Lord Chalfont got up.

"I fancy we're both here for the same reason: to lunch," he said pleasantly. "Shall we become known to each other? I'm Lord Chalfont."

"My name's Delamere," rejoined Maggy.

"We both owe something to the French, then. It ought to provide us with a sort of entente cordiale."

"Oh, I don't believe Delamere's my right name. It's too high-falutin'. But it's the only one I know of. My mother took it for the stage and it had to do for my christening."

The statement was made quite innocently. Chalfont was amused.

"I'm sure I've seen you before," he said.

His easy manner gave her confidence. She liked him. She felt she could talk to him without being on her guard. The way in which he looked at her had nothing disturbing in it. It was not the hunting look which she was accustomed to see in men's eyes, and against which she was for ever armed. If there was a touch of admiration in it there was also respect. She recognized the difference, and knew she had to do with a gentleman. Woolf had spoken of him as a bounder. There he was obviously wrong. Lord Chalfont looked the sort of person she had seen in historical pictures, dressed in silk and lace, walking unconcernedly to have his head chopped off.

"I daresay you've seen me often," she agreed. "I'm in the front row at the Pall Mall Theater—black chiffon over pink. Then I'm somebody's boot polish in the advertisements—my photograph, you know—cleaning my own shoes without dirtying my frock. And I'm somebody else's motorcoats, and nearly everybody's mouth-wash and cigarettes."

Chalfont laughed.

"By Jove! Do you know, I've always wondered who they got to sit for those advertisements. How's it arranged? Do you mind telling me?"

"Not at all. Sometimes the people—cigarettes or motorcoats, you know—write and ask you to come and pose for them at their shops; but generally it's done through a photographer. He gets paid for taking the photos, and you get a little cheque and a lot of advertisement. When it's for a mouth-wash you have to put on a broad grin and show your teeth. It's awfully tiring sometimes. For a hair-restorer you wear your hair down, and if you haven't much they fluff it out with a long switch so as to make people believe in the stuff."

"You're not tempted to use it, I suppose?"

"Rather not! I've got too much hair as it is. It won't even fall out in the autumn and spring."

"How about the cigarettes?"

"Oh, I daresay they're all right, though I don't suppose you'd want to smoke them."

"Just what I thought. Personally, I never buy anything that's advertised if I can help it. When I have it I invariably have a feeling that I'm being taken in."

"I think it's the women more than the men who are taken in," said Maggy thoughtfully. "Women believe anything they see in the papers. I used to once."

"But not now?"

She shook her head. "You get to know a lot about make-believe when you're on the stage."

"I suppose you do. How is it I've never met you here before?"

"I'm Lexie's friend. I mean Miss Hersey. Excuse my bad habit of speaking of people by their Christian names. I know it's not right. I don't, myself, like to hear women call their husbands 'Daddy' or 'Father' before strangers. It always sounds to me as if they wanted you to consider yourself one of the family."

"But you know Mrs. Lambert, don't you?"

"Hardly. I met her with Lexie in a shop the other day and she asked me to lunch. So here I am. Have I come too early?"

"On the contrary. I'm very glad you're here, relieving my solitude."

"I was afraid I was boring you. I can only talk rubbish. I can't help it. You see, I don't know anything about the things that sensible people talk about. Pictures and books and politics."

"I think you do yourself an injustice. Please don't imagine I say it out of compliment, but it's evident you are full of ideas, jolly interesting ones, too."

"Everybody has ideas of a sort, I suppose. What I mean is, I can't discuss any of the subjects that really matter. Religion, for instance. I know there are a thousand and one different ways of worshiping God, but I haven't brains enough to argue about them. I'm far more interested in a thousand different patterns for crochet, or the everyday things you see from the top of a bus. I'm just hot and cold, or happy or miserable."

"Which is it to-day?" asked Chalfont.

There was no flippancy in his tone. He saw that Maggy was an innately simple girl, quite natural, and by no means unintelligent. He found her frankness very refreshing, and he could but admire her delightful appearance. He was anything but bored.

"Which is it to-day?" he repeated.

"Warm and happy—just now. I'm not often miserable. I love my life," she said.

She meant it. The pretty room, the flowers abounding in it, the shaded windows framing masses of pink geranium, the soft ease of the big armchair she was seated in, so different from the new-art, unadaptable chairs of her own flat, had induced in her bodily comfort and mental contentment. For the moment she had forgotten the anxieties caused by her physical state. Unconsciously too she had fallen under the charm of Chalfont's amiability. She had never met a man like him. She felt she did not want to be on her guard with him. Whether he was more honest or more reasonable than other men she had known she did not stop to think about. Had she been asked for her chief impression of him she would have expressed it in the word clean.

So while she waited for Alexandra's return she let her candor have full play, keeping Chalfont amused by her cheery talk and quaintly humorous accounts of her life behind the scenes at the Pall Mall. She had brought with her a number of picture postcards of herself to give to Alexandra, for recently she had become quite a photographic favorite, and these she showed him.

"This is the one I like best," he said. "In the dress you have on now. It's charming."

"The dress, you mean. I'm so glad you like it. I was afraid it was too quiet. I'm never quite sure about my dresses and hats. My taste in clothes isn't always quiet. I love bright colors. They make me feel warm and comfy. You know how dogs like rolling in mud. I have the same feeling about colors. If I see anything very bright and gorgeous I want to hug it to me for joy. People are always staring at me in the street because of what I'm wearing."

Chalfont could quite understand that any one, in the street or elsewhere, would find pleasure in looking twice at such a beautiful creature. But he did not say so in so many words.

"You need not mind that," he said. "There's an esthetic sense in nearly everybody that makes them glad to look at anything—radiant."

"Radiant means brilliance, doesn't it? Talking of brilliance, do you like this?"

She held out her arm with the bracelet on it. Chalfont had already noticed it. Now he gave it a closer inspection. Whilst being a good judge of precious stones he had a great liking for paste when it was old and good, but what he saw now was merely a product of the modern manufacturer.

"A French copy, isn't it?" he asked, thoughtlessly.

Maggy's eyes widened. French—copy? Her diamond bracelet a copy—imitation! She could not credit it.

"But—they're diamonds!" she stammered, filled with a horrible misgiving.

Chalfont noticed the sharp note of disappointment in her voice and put it down to one of two causes. Either she had been defrauded by somebody or the bracelet was a present meant to deceive her. He made haste to modify the opinion he had expressed about it. Looking at it once more, he said:

"Is it? I'm awfully sorry. Of course, I must be mistaken. Hullo!" he interjected with relief, "here are Mrs. Lambert and Miss Hersey."

XIX

Lunch was over. Chalfont had taken his departure; Mrs. Lambert had excused herself on account of a bad headache and gone to lie down. The two girls were alone. The personal equation began to trouble Maggy again.

"I haven't seen you to talk to since you came to the flat," she said diffidently. "Were you really cross with Fred? Of course, what he said about Lord Chalfont was only what he'd heard. I could see by your face you were shocked."

"No, I wasn't exactly shocked," Alexandra answered.

"But you didn't like it. Fred didn't mean any harm. He's like me: he doesn't think what he says. I wish you liked him. You don't, do you?"

"You make me uncomfortable, Maggy. We can't all like the same people."

"But you're sorry I'm so fond of him?"

"Very sorry," said Alexandra in a low voice.

"I can't stop caring because of that. It's—it's in my system. Some girls fall in love with a man because they believe he's good or noble or brave or something they're particularly keen on; but if they find out they're mistaken they're off that man like fleas from a dead rabbit. If that sounds vulgar please forgive me, Lexie. The words just came out. It's one of Fred's expressions. What I mean is, I can't love like that, though I know I should be much more comfortable if I could. If I knew you'd stolen Mrs. Lambert's purse or gone off with a rag-picker it wouldn't make a bit of difference to me. It's you I love, not what you do. And I feel the same about Fred, only more so."

Prior to this, Mrs. Lambert had asked Alexandra a few questions about Maggy's relations with Woolf. The answers she had fitted in with certain information about the man himself previously imparted to her by Chalfont. What she deduced from the two statements made her sorry for Alexandra's friend and a little anxious about her.

"No girl is safe with a man like that," she had said to Alexandra. "If I were you I should try and persuade her to break with him."

And Alexandra meant to try. There was one weapon she might have used to shake Maggy's loyalty to Woolf: the cruelly belittling way in which he had referred to her just before her cab drove off. But she shrank from that. It was too poisonous.

"What would you say if I asked you to leave him?" she asked. "Supposing I needed you back with me?"

Maggy weighed the problem.

"I should say you jolly well knew I couldn't come," she answered. "I'm all in. If Fred was in Hell and wanted me there I believe I'd have to get to him. You don't know what it is."

"What is it?"

"It's the little things about him that have eaten into me. I'm corrupted, or corroded, whatever it is. Perhaps it's both. I love the white lock in his hair, the little pellet in his ear where he got peppered out shooting once, the scent of his tobacco, the smell of a Harris tweed suit he's got." She sniffed sensuously. "And there are other things I can't tell you about...."

"If he were to die or married some one else you would have to resign yourself to doing without him," argued Alexandra.

"Perhaps. I don't know. He's not dead or married, and I'm his. I know he could manage without me. I'm just like an ornament to him. He dusts me and puts me back on my shelf, and takes me down sometimes and has a look at me. I hope to God he'll never drop or break me!"

Alexandra was disturbed by the depth of passion in her voice.

"I know what you think about Fred," Maggy went on. "You think he's something near a cad. Well, there are lots of women who love cads and who don't know that they are cads. Perhaps I'm one of them. You can't put me out of this, Lexie dear. I don't know how it's going to end and I don't want to know. That's where real life is rather like the stage. The tag to a play's kept dark, never spoken until the curtain's about to hide the players from view. If we knew how things were going to end with us—knew the tags to our lives—I guess some of us wouldn't be able to go on with our parts off the stage."

It was like arguing with a fatalist. Her loyalty to Woolf was as unalterable as destiny. Alexandra gave up trying to move her. She changed the conversation, and an hour later Maggy went upstairs in response to a message from Mrs. Lambert, who wanted to say good-by to her.

Mrs. Lambert's bedroom was in half darkness. She was still racked with a headache, but she wanted to see Maggy and to hear whether Alexandra had succeeded in persuading her to break with Woolf. For this purpose she had left the two girls alone together. Maggy closed the door gently behind her and tip-toed toward the bed.

"I'm so sorry you feel bad," she said feelingly. "It won't do for me to stop talking to you. That will make your head worse. I'll just say good-by and go. Thank you for being so kind to me. It was nice to come and see Lexie here."

"You're very fond of her?" asked Mrs. Lambert.

"She's fine. I lived with her, you see. When you live for weeks with another girl in one room, and don't have a cross word it stands to reason one of you must be eighteen-carat. That's Lexie. She never complained or lost heart, not even when things were bad and I left her. She's the quiet sort but she's a fighter. There were soldiers in her family. It comes out in her. But I've started to talk—"

"You don't tire me. Sit down. It's refreshing to hear a woman speak well of another. Rather a novelty too. Aren't you jealous of her going away with me?"

"No, I'm awfully glad she's found you. I was thinking this afternoon how well she fitted in with everything here. She's a lady, like you. Things that I never fretted about because I wasn't used to them, she must have missed terribly. She's fine lace. I'm crochet work."

Mrs. Lambert laid her thin hand on Maggy's.

"How would you like to come on tour with us?" she asked. "I could make room for you. But I suppose your contract at the Pall Mall wouldn't permit of it?"

The unexpected proposition was tempting enough. Under different circumstances Maggy would have jumped at it.

"It isn't the contract that would stop me," she said with some hesitation. "But I've got a—flat."

There was a pregnant pause.

"And there's another reason.... I—I have to go away for a little while ... and I was glad that Lexie would be away. Oh, what have I said? You don't understand?"