Front matter (continued 3)

"I think I do."

Maggy's face flushed crimson and then went white. Mrs. Lambert's hand still lay on hers. Contact with it gave her a feeling of sisterhood, a longing to confide. Her pent up feelings suddenly found voice.

"I want to tell some one," she choked. "I've got to go through with something I hate—and dread. I've longed to speak to another woman about it, but there was only Lexie, and she's not"—she stumbled over the word—"married. I wouldn't tell her. It wouldn't have been right."

"Tell me."

"I—can't see your face," whispered Maggy fearfully.

"It's not turned from you."

Then Maggy unburdened her soul. A flood of unreserved words broke from her. Mrs. Lambert neither moved nor spoke, but the grasp of her hand tightened as the poignant story culminated.

"I daren't let myself think about it," Maggy's faltering voice went on. "If I think too much my brain begins to rock, and I'm afraid. It's wonderful and awful and I don't feel the same. The other day I saw a woman in the street. She had such a pretty baby in her arms. It was too heavy for her to carry, and she looked dead tired, but I could see by her face how she loved it, weight and all, and I had to hold on to myself to stop from screaming out, 'You're lucky. You can keep yours. I—'" Something she dimly discerned in Mrs. Lambert's face brought her to a sudden stop. "Why, I've made you cry!" she said contritely. "What a brute I am!"

"No, no. Don't take your hand away," was the soft rejoinder. "You poor child! My heart aches for you."

When Maggy re-entered the drawing room her eyes were suspiciously red. She seemed anxious to get away. She put her arms round Alexandra and hugged her.

"Good-by, Lexie," she said breathlessly. "Don't forget me. The best of luck. Mrs. Lambert's an angel. T-tell her so—from me."

She tore herself away, pulled down her veil, and was gone, leaving Alexandra bewildered.

Maggy stopped at a jeweler's on her way home. Taking off her bracelet, she handed it to the man behind the counter.

"Don't bother to tell me what it's worth. Just say whether it's real or sham," she said.

It was sham.

She dropped it into her bag and went out, with a new pain gripping at her heart. She never wore the bracelet again.

After dinner that evening Woolf remarked its absence. She had worn it ever since he had given it to her.

"Where's your bracelet?" he inquired. "I hope you haven't left it about or had it stolen."

"Fred," she said, looking him steadily in the eyes, "I found out quite by accident that it isn't real. Wait a minute. Let me finish. You know I don't care tuppence about the value of anything you give me. It isn't the cost I think of. If you'd given me a ring out of a penny cracker I wouldn't have changed it for another from somebody else a million times its value. But don't sham to me. I—I can't bear it."

"I never told you they were real diamonds," he rejoined in a nettled voice. "If I didn't say they were paste you ought to have guessed it. Anyhow, the bracelet cost me twenty pounds. Genuine stones that size would have run to the price of a damn good race horse." He gave her a disparaging look. "Why, all in, you don't cost me as much as one of the animals I've got in training."

The words froze her. She stared at him in dumb agony.

"Oh, my heart!" she cried, with a sudden catch at her breath.

He sat still, coldly indifferent.

"And I've given it to you!" she presently whispered.

XX

Alexandra's longing to act, to appear before an impartial audience in a play reflecting every-day life, was at last satisfied when the tour began. Her part was a very small one, that of a parlormaid only, but it did not prevent her going through the usual phases of stage fright at the first performance. On the second night she was calm and collected. At the end of a week it surprised her to find that she was no longer under the spell of theatricalism.

Had she joined the company in the ordinary way the glamour of the stage would have got hold of her and remained with her for a long time. As an insignificant member of it, out of touch with its leading light, she would have imagined mysteries where none existed. But from the very first all these so-called mysteries were exposed. She was like the assistant to the conjuror: she saw how things were done.

In the first place, Mrs. Lambert did not pose as any high-priestess of the drama: she was rather contemptuous of the stage. She thought of it as a way to make an easy living, that was all. Alexandra's notions about the stage were all associated with Art: Mrs. Lambert's were confined to figures. She and her manager talked business unexcitedly for an hour every day, never esthetics. She was mildly amused when Alexandra showed her enthusiasm for acting, as she did in that first week.

"You'll get over it, my dear," she said. "It's not an art, merely a matter of temperament. If acting were creative one could take it seriously, but it isn't. The author creates; the actor only represents. When I'm acting I often feel like the inside of a moving picture show. It's all mechanical."

"But," said Alexandra, "you weren't always like that? When you first went on the stage—"

"I felt as you do, all emotion and inexperience. Now that I've lived and am disillusioned I know that the stage is only a business, and not a very edifying one. The public don't see that side of it, fortunately. They think only of the amusement it provides. If they would stop there it wouldn't matter: but they have such a mania for everything theatrical in this country, such a desire to penetrate beyond the footlights, that they quite forget the necessity for a curtain between the make-believe of the stage and themselves. They're like a child with a toy. They want to see the inside mechanism, and directly they do they suffer the usual disappointment. I never take people 'behind'; if I do I always find they never again want to pay for a seat 'in front.' We're only shop-keepers, after all, and shop-keepers don't invite their customers behind the counter, any more than the customers are in the habit of asking their butcher or their baker to dinner. Somehow you can't get the public to see things like that. Instead of keeping members of the stage at a distance, treating them like kennel-dogs, they invite them to their houses and pamper them. It makes them more conceited and self-sufficient than they are already. I don't deny that a few actors and actresses are decently born and bred, indoor dogs, so to speak, knowing their manners; but that's no reason why the whole pack should be made free of the public's drawing rooms.... Let us walk up to the cathedral and spend a quiet hour there."

The tour had opened in a small cathedral town, and the three hours spent at the theater each night hardly counted in their daily round. They motored about the surrounding country, or read, talked and did needlework in the private sitting room of their quiet hotel. Such a life, placid and yet full of pleasant occupation, was delightful to Alexandra. She found the weekly change from town to town exhilarating, and the journey each Sunday in Mrs. Lambert's comfortable landaulette a luxurious mode of traveling.

At the end of their first week Chalfont came down and remained with them for the rest of the tour. Both he and Mrs. Lambert treated Alexandra on terms of equality so that she never felt an intruder on their intimacy. Before her they made no secret of their attachment, but she never regarded it as anything more close than what might exist between old and tried friends. Sometimes she detected in Mrs. Lambert quite a sisterly attitude toward Lord Chalfont. That was probably accounted for by the differences in their ages, she being a few years the elder.

Chalfont often asked after Maggy. He had quite an open admiration for her, which Mrs. Lambert shared. But, unlike him, she seldom asked for news of her. At the time, Alexandra did not notice this apparent lack of interest. She was not able to impart anything about Maggy for the simple reason that she had not heard from her. Only twice during the early days of the tour had there been a letter from her. After that, although Alexandra repeatedly wrote, she got no reply. She could not help wondering at this silence. It was not like Maggy. Later, when she spoke of it to Mrs. Lambert, the latter did not seem surprised.

"You're sure to hear from her soon. She may be away," she said.

And a letter did arrive from Maggy shortly afterwards. It was written in pencil and strangely shaky, quite unlike her habitual hand, which although childish, was remarkably firm. She said very little, confirmed Mrs. Lambert's prophecy by admitting that she had been away for a change, owing to which she had not received Alexandra's letters until her return. She ended with a postscript which had evidently been added in a burst of feeling.

"I love Fred more than ever, Lexie. I couldn't exist without him. He has been such a dear since I got back."

Alexandra passed it across the breakfast table to Mrs. Lambert, with the remark:

"It's from Maggy. She doesn't say what has been the matter with her, though."

Chalfont looked up.

"Has your friend been ill?" he asked with concern. "I'm sorry to hear that. We must send her some flowers, Ada."

"Yes, we will," Mrs. Lambert concurred.

After breakfast he went out to buy some. When he came back Mrs. Lambert was alone in the room.

"What beauties!" she said, lifting the lid of the box he had brought in with him. "Catherine Mermets."

She hung over the roses, the bitter-sweet of the memories they evoked coming up to her with their delicate fragrance. Chalfont always bought her Catherine Mermets when they were in bloom, great masses of them; but it was Hugh Lambert who had first given her a bunch of three, purchased at a street corner at sixpence each in the days when sixpences were scarce with him.

"I got them because they are your favorites," he said. "I thought she would be sure to like what you like. Anyway, what's good enough for you is good enough for anybody."

She put her arm over his shoulder and kissed him.

"You're always so thoughtful, and so loyal," she said. "I'm getting old and you remain steadfast. It seems such an irony of fate that I can't love you as you deserve. Although Hugh has no claim on my feelings or my memory, I can't forget him. I give you so little, Leonard. One day, perhaps, some girl will love you worthily, and make up for my meanness."

He smiled down at her, shaking his head.

"Keep those roses," he said. "I'll get Miss Delamere some more."

"No, no, I want her to have them. Put your card in. Shall I write the address?"

Woolf was with Maggy when the post brought her the roses. He cut the string and stood looking on while she removed the tissue wrappings.

"Oh, roses!" she cried delightedly. "Who can have sent them?"

They had traveled as well as could be expected of cut flowers, but they were flagging a little for want of water.

Woolf pounced on the card that accompanied them.

"'Lord Chalfont,'" he read, and scowled at the club address in the corner. "Damn his impudence sending you flowers! And how the devil does he know your address?" he demanded angrily.

Maggy was perturbed at this outburst.

"You needn't mind, Fred," she said placably.

"Did you tell him where you lived?"

"Of course not. You needn't go back to that. You said you'd forgiven me for going to lunch with Mrs. Lambert that day. You know I met him there, and that's all there is in it. He must have known that I—I hadn't been well—through Lexie, and sent the flowers out of politeness." She turned the lid of the box up. "The address is in a woman's hand: Mrs. Lambert's. There's nothing to look so furious about."

The fact that flowers should come to Maggy from a comparative stranger would not, of itself, have irritated Woolf. She often received flowers now, and from men she had never met. Her good looks and prominence at the Pall Mall accounted for this. Woolf made no objection. The admiration of other men for her rather enhanced her desirability in his eyes. He took it as a tribute to his own good taste in having secured possession of her. But Chalfont's name affected him in much the same manner as a red rag does a bull. It blinded him with rage because it stood for everything that he himself was devoid of—birth, breeding, nobility of nature—and, moreover, because it was that of the man who had humbled him by having him turned out of the select club to which he aspired to membership. That incident had touched Woolf on the raw. It was much as if he had been told that he was unworthy of association with gentlemen.

He picked up the roses and pitched them into the fireplace.

"Damned cheek, sending you a few pennyworth of dead flowers!" he flared out. "I'll go and buy you some live ones!"

Maggy did not protest. She had learnt discretion with Woolf. He flung out of the flat. Half-an-hour later a messenger boy came with a magnificent bouquet of freshly-cut Catherine Mermets.

Maggy was so happy arranging them.

XXI

In spite of the pleasant conditions under which the tour proceeded it began to be evident to Alexandra that Mrs. Lambert was suffering from acute nervous strain. She would spend hours on the sofa in thoughtful silence. Conversely, she showed undue vivacity on the stage at night. Sometimes she evinced an almost feverish interest in the financial side of her tour, growing depressed when business was indifferent and unduly elated when it was extra good.

During this period Alexandra learnt for the first time that Mrs. Lambert had a daughter. Inconsequently enough, as it seemed to her, Mrs. Lambert's reference to the fact was the outcome of a talk between them one day concerning Maggy. It showed the elder woman in a new aspect, strongly maternal in her feelings. The child's absence evidently distressed her.

"Why don't you have her with you?" was the natural inquiry that rose to Alexandra's lips.

The reply to this was as spontaneous as the question.

"I would love to! But how could I? Baba is ten. There's Chalfont.... Children are so quick to notice things...."

Alexandra's puzzled look showed that she placed a very innocent construction on the intimacy of these two.

"You didn't think we were only friends?" Mrs. Lambert inquired a little reluctantly. "It's not so. I supposed you knew."

The admission did not actually shock Alexandra, but it pained her. She found it difficult to associate Mrs. Lambert with any form of liaison. Lord Chalfont, moreover, had also given her the impression of being a man averse from it. That these two, in Alexandra's estimation so free from the taint of theatrical libertinism, should not have been superior to circumstances was singularly disconcerting.

"I did think you were only friends," she said.

Her voice was so full of disappointment that Mrs. Lambert half-regretted her frankness. She knew Alexandra to be a very pure-minded girl. She felt she owed her an explanation.

"Friendship as you understand it is difficult, almost impossible, between a man and woman in circumstances like ours," she said. "Lord Chalfont has remained unmarried on my account. I think you must know that my husband and I are separated. Well, a woman is a very lone creature without love and sympathy. There are so many things she cannot do for herself. If there were nothing else there would always be the difficulty of business. I have to work for Baba's sake. I couldn't do it alone. I must leave her independent of the stage."

"I am so sorry," was all Alexandra could say.

"I believe you are. My dear, when I was your age, like you I was full of regrets for all the wrongs of the world. I wanted it perfect and morally rigid. I meant to show that an actress could still be a lady and quite virtuous. I don't think I've disproved the one, but the Fates have been too strong for me to fulfill the second qualification. I had to separate from my husband. I did not want to. I loved him. I have nothing to reproach myself with for the rupture between us. But for that I should always have been a faithful wife. I only thought of his career. I used to fight all his battles, on and off the stage. At one time I did all his business for him because he hated it. In those days he wasn't spoilt. He was just a fascinating, childish person with all the sensitiveness of an artistic temperament. He was very fond of me, too.... Then came the time when he went into management, and there was no part for me. I was not to play "lead" with him because he considered me unsuited to it. I was too proud to play a smaller part in his own theater.... He engaged Mary Mantel. In that play their love-making brought down the house. It was so real. It was real. I found that out very soon. Mary Mantel deliberately took my husband from me. He was too weak to resist her—to resist pleasing any pretty woman.... I told them both what I knew ... and we parted. If I hadn't discovered what I did, or suppressed my knowledge of it, I don't doubt but that he would be with me now, behaving as a lover to two women! ... For years Lord Chalfont went about with me. We were friends, nothing more. I always hoped Hugh would make atonement and want me back. But I lost heart, and Chalfont was always there, so patient and kind.... As a Catholic I couldn't bring myself to divorce Hugh and marry him, and I thought that if he should ever get tired of me I should like him to feel free.... Because I am an actress, to whom all things are forgiven, the voice of social ostracism had never been raised against our union.... That is the whole story. Well, what do you think of me now?"

Alexandra did not know what to think, still less to say. The only comment she felt capable of making was that Mrs. Lambert was not degraded by what she had done. That was evident. Alexandra did not make the comparison, but all the same she dimly comprehended that there was a certain similarity between Maggy's case and Mrs. Lambert's. It had never occurred to Alexandra that Maggy was degraded either.... Quite suddenly, like a revelation, the reason of the sympathy between these two, now her closest friends, dawned on her.... Insensibly too, because she was not thinking of herself, her own resistance to frailty seemed to weaken. There was to come a time when she would recall every word Maggy and Mrs. Lambert had spoken on the subject of sex conflict and the stage.

"I think none the less of you," she answered steadily after a long pause. "I suppose you are being more true to yourself in not divorcing your husband and marrying Lord Chalfont."

"I don't know. I'm not sure that I've done right. But the stage makes it so easy for you to do wrong, to choose the way your inclinations lead.... Chalfont has been the greater sufferer. He hates to think that our relationship, when discussed, is bracketed with the usual run of light and unholy compacts. I confess to being more thick-skinned. The stage blunts one's finer feelings, I suppose. There's something dreadfully insidious about it. Its lax atmosphere saps the sense of rectitude. You don't know that your views are gradually altering until you suddenly discover that, like everybody else on it, you are about to make its customs fit your own circumstances. Nobody on the stage is free from that taint: chorus girls are not a bit more frail than highly-paid actresses. Chorus girls are more flagrant, that is all."

Alexandra was looking very serious and dismayed.

"It's rather terrible," she said reflectively. "Maggy has often said much the same thing in a different way. Is everything wrong?"

"For a girl like you, yes. I don't assert that everything and everybody on the stage is bad. There are exceptions, of course. Clouds have their silver lining. What I do maintain is that the stage is not and never can be a profession that a nice-minded girl can adopt and expect to remain untainted by."

"I wonder"—Alexandra's voice was almost fearful—"what my own ideas about it will be in a few years' time."

"In a few years' time, my dear girl, with luck you will be married and have forgotten all its ugliness. You may perhaps still be sufficiently enamored of the theater to let your husband sometimes pay for two stalls; and sometimes when you pass a struggling actress in the street you will recognize her by her stamp and thank God that you're out of it all. That's the best that can happen to you."

"But you? You wouldn't like to be out of it—altogether?"

Mrs. Lambert's eyes seemed to hold some happy secret.

"I look forward to the day when I shall be—resting," she made answer. "Have you ever tried to wind a ball of thread with the skein in your hand? It isn't easy. My skein is tangled ... and I am tired."

XXII

They were at Eastbourne during the following week. One morning whilst in her bedroom putting on her hat in readiness for a walk Alexandra was startled by an impetuous knock at her door. Chalfont's voice, calling her by name, took her hurriedly to it.

"Please go to Ada at once," he said. "She's ill. She can't act to-night. I have to see her manager and telephone to London for her doctor. You'll look after her while I'm gone, won't you?" he added with deep solicitude as he hastened off.

Alexandra went quickly to Mrs. Lambert's room. She was greatly concerned by Chalfont's bad news, but far less unprepared for it than he had been. On the previous night Mrs. Lambert had almost collapsed in her dressing room, though she had made light of it and had forbidden Alexandra to say anything about it to Chalfont. Now she was worse, just recovering from the dead faint in which she had been found. She looked exceedingly ill.

"Don't be frightened," she said in a weak voice. "I know perfectly well what is the matter with me. I'm afraid it means an untimely end to the tour, though. You won't leave me?"

"Of course not," Alexandra promised. "You mustn't worry about the tour, or anything. You want a rest. You'll be quite strong again soon."

Mrs. Lambert smiled faintly. "I told you I looked forward to resting. I meant it in its eternal sense. Six months ago I knew what was in store for me, but I meant to stand out this tour, if I could. I'm afraid they'll try and persuade me to have an operation.... Just an outside chance of living.... Oh, my dear, I would so like to die quietly without being cut about and pried into."

The tears came into Alexandra's eyes. Illness she was prepared for, but not the thought of death.

"Please, please, don't talk like that," she said unsteadily. "Heaps of people who are very ill get better. Let me undress you. Then I'll sit by you. But I don't think you ought to talk."

Mrs. Lambert was very passive. When Alexandra had undressed her she lay for a little in silence. Suddenly she said:

"Remember I'm a Catholic.... See that I have a priest at the last ... if it comes to that. And—I must say this, don't stop me—if—it's necessary—afterwards—I would like you to write to my husband and tell him I sent my love."

"Yes, yes, I promise," murmured Alexandra huskily.

Mrs. Lambert turned on her pillow.

"Baba will be all right, I think," she whispered, and fell asleep.

She was awake again and quite cheery when the doctor, a noted specialist, arrived during the late afternoon. He was a long time with her and also a long time with Chalfont afterwards. The result of that conference was that the latter came to Alexandra and told her that an immediate operation had been decided on.

"To-morrow?" she asked fearfully.

The weakening effect of suspense made her shrink from the imminence of the ordeal, although it was not she who was to endure it. Deep distress was in Chalfont's face.

"No, to-night," he said brokenly. "She wouldn't consent at first.... When Sir James told me that delay was dangerous I had to—to advise her to undergo it." He could hardly get the words out. "There isn't time to move her. The hotel people have been very decent about it. I have just seen the manager.... Two nurses are coming."

Alexandra could only stand and struggle with her voice. Her feelings were beyond expression.

"I'm afraid—terribly afraid we have to face losing her," said Chalfont at last.

"Oh, I hope not," she said fervently, while the tears streamed down her face. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Yes, there is." What he had to say cost him a struggle. "Her husband ought to know. He ought to be here. I doubt whether a telegram would be any use, and I can't go to him. Will you?"

"I'll do anything," she said.

"Thank you. I'll have the car round at once then." He looked at his watch. "It's six now. You can be in town by a little after eight. You'll catch him at the theater. Try and bring him back with you. It—the operation—will be over by that time. We shall know—one way or the other. You would like to see her before you start?"

"Please." Alexandra was very white, but she was quiet now that she knew the worst and had not to await in inactivity. "She told me she would like a priest," she said. "I think you should send for one."

"I have already."

She took a step toward the door but turned suddenly and without speaking put her hand out. He grasped and held it tightly, taking comfort from the action.

"You'll do your best, I know," he said gratefully.

XXIII

Alexandra said nothing to Mrs. Lambert of her impending errand. Discretion counseled silence about it. From what she had heard of Hugh Lambert, and judging also by Chalfont's doubts, unexpressed though they were, whether he would respond to the obligation imposed on him, she was dreadfully afraid that she might not be successful. Still, she could do nothing by remaining in the hotel, and in going she was avoiding the purgatory of having to sit in an adjoining room while the woman who had been so good to her was in the toils of death.

It was half-past six when Chalfont saw her off after bidding the chauffeur use the best speed the car was capable of. The man, who was devoted to his mistress, needed little incentive. Once informed of her perilous condition his one thought was to do his best for her by getting to his destination without the loss of a moment.

Once out of the town he let his engine out. Alexandra found herself leaning forward in the car, involuntarily actuated by a desire to urge it on still faster. At first her troubled mind could not think coherently, but as the Panhard tore along over the smooth tarred road northwards, the monotony of its motion tended to abate her nervous tension. She found herself reviewing the incidents that had culminated in the present crisis. They passed through her mind like a set of moving pictures, the hum of the engine accentuating the illusion.

She saw herself at home, alone, bereft of the mother with whom she had happily spent so many years in the small and placid provincial town that was like a harbor of refuge to superannuated Anglo-Indians; her departure from it under the eyes of a sceptical circle of friends, suspect because she had elected to choose so unconventional a way of life as the stage; flitting shadows of herself in London looking for employment; the unpleasant picture of a boarding-house; the still more unpleasant incident that had caused her to leave it; then the somber picture of the Pall Mall stage and Maggy. The screen of her mind threw things up clearly now. The perspective of time robbed the little room in Sidey Street of its uninviting aspect, and her life there of its straitened circumstances. Maggy's desertion of her was the one sad feature of that picture. The reel of experience became vivid again as it showed her in happy companionship with the actress. Pleasant scenes and cheerful incidents characterized it, obliterating from her mind the troublous past. Then, close on the heels of this state of content came the unexpected shock of present happenings. From being a spectator of the introspective drama she came to herself, startled by the abrupt consciousness of personal participation in it.

The pale face and luminous eyes of the sick woman filled her thoughts; the odor of drugs that permeated the room in which she had left her seemed to fill her nostrils. She thought too of Chalfont and the self-denying motives that had prompted him to send for the one man he could least wish to see.

It was dark inside the car now, but the lit streets and the turmoil of traffic through which it was threading its way meant that she had reached London.

London again! She no longer felt about it as she had in the days when she was new to it. The novelty of it had worn off. She had seen its seamy side, lived on the verge of its submerged life, been up against the brunt of it. Repugnance to it filled her when she remembered, as she suddenly did, that before many days had elapsed she would probably have to return to it. She found herself shrinking at the prospect of going back to the conditions that wore one down and sapped one's power of resistance in the unequal fight for a living there, from having to resume the weary round once more among the agencies; the interminable suspense in stuffy waiting rooms among the loquacious crowd of out-of-works. It all came back so vividly: her soul sickened of it.

She knew that if Mrs. Lambert should recover she would stand by her. She had said as much. But if she died.... The unhappy speculation was not induced by selfishness. The next moment Alexandra's thoughts were solely concerned with Mrs. Lambert's personal peril. They made her forget her own fears. She tried to pray for her. It seemed incongruous to pray in Piccadilly, where the car was slowly threading its way among the traffic. Still, surely God could and would hear her in spite of the din made by the motor-buses!

They were close to Lambert's theater now.... Another few minutes.... The piece would be half over.... The car turned down a side street and stopped at the stage door. Alexandra got out. There was the usual difficulty with the stage-door keeper about admittance. He did not know her. She mentioned Mrs. Lambert's name. That stirred him even less. His attitude toward the last-named was that of the hireling inspired by the master. No Mrs. Lambert existed for him. Indeed, the importation of her name struck him as the ruse of a stage-struck damsel. They were always inventing dodges to get past him and make him lose his job. Ten precious minutes passed in futile argument. Even in an urgent case like this, vital to Lambert himself, the absurd inaccessibility of the successful actor toward any one of the outside world was borne in on Alexandra with exaggerated force.

"I'll wait here until Mr. Lambert leaves the theater," she said at last. "And I think I can promise you that you'll lose your place when he hears that you refused to take up my card."

Her indignation and her threat were too real to be ignored. They influenced the man's manner.

"Oh, well, chuck it over," he said grudgingly.

She handed it to him. In addition to her name it bore the words "Mrs. Hugh Lambert's Company." She had already penciled on it a line meant for Lambert's own eye. The man went off grumbling. When he returned his arrogance had entirely disappeared.

"The governor will see you," he said. "Up the stairs and the first door on the right." Then he added insinuatingly: "Sorry to keep you waiting, miss; but I get it that hot if I let anybody pass who's wanting an engagement."

She was indifferent to his regrets. All she wanted was to see Lambert and take him back with her. She passed in, hurried up the stairs, where at the top his dressing-room door stood open.

Lambert was playing in a costume piece, a mid-Georgian comedy that owed a great deal of its inspiration to Sheridan. In it he appeared as a beau of that elegant period, and as Alexandra on entering saw him she could but admit that he looked the part. Dressed in gorgeous brocade through which a dainty sword-hilt protruded, immaculately bewigged, lace-ruffled and overpoweringly scented, as she discovered on nearing him, he gave her the impression of extreme elegance, tempered by foppishness and effeminacy. He was sitting before the mirror on his dressing-table, leaning toward it, adding a deeper pencil mark to his eyebrows. When he had done that to his satisfaction he picked up a stick of carmine and deliberately touched up the curve of his lips before turning round to face his visitor. Alexandra had always felt an instinctive dislike of make-up on a man's face, though she recognized it as essential to the stage. But Lambert's attitude before the mirror was so affected, so vain that he instantly inspired her with contempt.

"You come from my wife?" he asked, and she thought she detected a note of dismay in his fine-toned voice. "Did she send you?"

"No," she answered. "But I want you to come down to her at once. She is very ill. I motored up so as not to lose a minute."

He gave a slightly startled movement at her news. It was as though he shrank from hearing it.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "Where is she?"

"At Eastbourne."

"Is—is it serious?"

"Very serious. They—" the words stuck in her throat—"they are operating now. She wished to see you. She was talking of you to me this morning—"

She was interrupted by the entrance of a third person, a woman who came in without knocking, a woman, pretty beneath her paint, with curiously hard blue eyes. She stared at Alexandra with open hostility and then looked interrogatively at Lambert.

"This lady has come up from Eastbourne," he hesitated. "My wife is ill and wants to see me."

After a momentary silence the newcomer allowed herself a trifling shrug of the shoulders.

"She has been ill before," she said a little contemptuously, and turned to Alexandra. "What is it this time? A bilious attack?"

Alexandra looked at her steadily, perhaps disdainfully. She guessed she had to do with Mary Mantel, the woman who had displaced Mrs. Lambert in her husband's affections.

"We fear she is dying," was her rejoinder.

The other woman laughed.

"Oh, I see! Advertising her 'farewell to the stage.' I daresay she will take her time over it."

Lambert turned on her.

"Be quiet!" he exclaimed irritably.

Again she shrugged. "It's our call directly."

"I can't help that. MacBride must go on for me."

He picked up a towel and was about to remove the grease paint from his face, but stopped at the ejaculation that broke from her.

"You can't possibly go to-night," she burst out. "Evidently these people"—she made an impatient gesture that indicated Alexandra—"don't know that it's the last night of your season, and that you're booked to leave for America in three days' time. Or probably they don't care. To think of throwing up your part at a moment's notice and letting the curtain come down in your absence is madness. You must stop for your speech. If you want to you can go first thing to-morrow, though you'll probably have a wire by then to say your wife's better and won't see you for worlds!"

A boy put his head in at the door.

"Your call, sir," he announced.

Lambert got up, the towel still in his hand, the paint still on his face. Alexandra watched the indecision in it. Had he enough strength of mind to come? Or would he let self-interest prevail?

"Hugh, do be guided by me," begged Miss Mantel. "Think of your career. There will be call on call for you at the end of the show. The house is full of pressmen. Are you going to throw away hundreds of pounds' worth of gratuitous advertisement?"

That last argument decided him. Publicity, the acclamation of the crowd, the opportunity to pose before it, to deliver the carefully-prepared speech, egotistical yet full of sham humility, were temptations he was unable to resist. With a quiver of his painted lips that owed nothing to solicitude for a wife who lay between life and death, he said:

"I'll come in the morning;" and without looking at Alexandra, made for the stage.

She heard the thunder of applause that greeted him. To the little tin gods the plaudits of the multitude are as the music of the spheres.

XXIV

It was verging on midnight when Chalfont came out of the sick room to hear the result of Alexandra's errand. The moment he saw that she was alone, limp and tired from her journey, he knew it had failed. He had had the forethought to have some cold supper ready for her, and while she ate a little of it and drank the glass of champagne which he insisted on her taking, he answered her many questions about Mrs. Lambert. In tones of sad resignation he told her that the operation had been successful but that there was little hope. She had taken the anesthetic badly and was still under its influence.

"So Lambert wouldn't come?" he asked, when the painful subject was exhausted.

"I believe he was willing to come," she replied. "I saw him alone first. But Miss Mantel came in and dissuaded him. It was a last night. He had to make a speech. She urged him to stay. He's very weak, I think. He said he would come in the morning. Can I go to her?"

"Better not. The nurse will let us know when she is conscious. It oughtn't to be long now. Lie down on the sofa and try to sleep."

She was too anxious for that, so they sat waiting, for hours as it seemed. Now and again they talked, but most of the time absorbed and troubled thought held them silent. No sound came from the next room. Presently its quiet was broken by the monotonous drone of a man's voice. Alexandra sat up, listening.

"Who is that?" she asked.

"The priest. He's with her."

Twice they heard a faint murmur mingled with a low intoning. Another half-hour passed. Then the priest came noiselessly into the room. He drew Chalfont on one side and they spoke together in whispers.

Presently the latter beckoned to Alexandra.

"Come," he said; and the three went into the sick room.

A light, carefully screened, threw the bed in shadow, but not sufficiently to hide the still form that lay upon it. Although the pallor of death was in Mrs. Lambert's face, it seemed to have grown youthful. She looked like a child asleep. Her eyes were closed. They could not tell whether she was aware of their presence or not. The priest stood at the foot of the bed lost in prayer. The nurses, still and white like statues, watched from a distance.

Chalfont, kneeling with a hand laid gently on that of the woman he loved, broke the long silence.

"Speak to us," he implored.

She heard his voice and opened her eyes. They had a spectral look, and as she turned them from him to Alexandra an expression of concern crept into her face. She murmured something faintly.

"Your husband will be here in the morning, dearest," he said softly but distinctly, trying to stimulate her to consciousness.

Some weighty thought was affecting her mind. Her eyes were on Chalfont. She seemed to be making an effort to say something.

"That poor girl ... that nice girl..."

Chalfont bent low, fearful of losing the whispered words.

"What poor girl, dear?"

They thought she said "Maggy."

Lambert arrived at six the next morning. His first concern was to explain breathlessly to Alexandra that he had been detained ... a business matter ... farewell supper.... She would understand.... He had hardly had three hours' sleep before starting. Chalfont and Alexandra could not help exchanging an outraged glance. When she told him that he had come too late his weak mouth opened in surprise. Then his features worked unpleasantly. He stood stupidly, looking as though he were about to burst into tears. Chalfont's tolerance was near its limit. With a set face he indicated the closed door.

"In there," he said.

Lambert hesitated.

"Do you not want to see her?" Chalfont's voice was like steel.

It only wanted the point-blank demand to unnerve Lambert completely. He collapsed into a chair. It would have been difficult to recognize his huddled figure as that of the debonair stage-gallant so familiar and so dear to a host of infatuated theater-goers.

"Do you not want to see her?" Chalfont repeated remorselessly.

Lambert's face was lowered. When he looked up cowardice transfigured it.

"I—I've never looked on death," he quavered.

Alexandra, shocked beyond words, thought that Chalfont would surely strike him. He stood over him so long in a tense attitude.

"My God!" he at last exclaimed. "Can this be a man?"

He went to the door by which Lambert had entered, opened it, and then drew aside as far as he could to let the actor pass.

XXV

The London newspapers had not given much of their space to Mrs. Lambert's doings while she was alive. She did not advertise in them. Besides, all their dramatic critics were on speaking terms with Lambert, and even dramatic critics have second-hand prejudices. But now that Mrs. Lambert was dead she was accorded the half-column of obituary notice to which actors and actresses seem to have a prescriptive right. Defunct millionaires and jam-makers get a little less: British officers who die for their country have to be satisfied with a couple of lines tucked away among the Military Intelligence.

The papers belauded the dead woman. They recorded her dramatic successes with much detail. They were fulsome concerning her virtues. Their readers were left to imagine the feelings of her bereaved and heart-broken husband, who at the moment was sorting an auction-bridge hand in the cardroom of a transatlantic liner. It was the sort of pretentious gush that had always sickened Mrs. Lambert when she read it about others.

The funeral was largely attended by members of the theatrical profession. Few of them knew the deceased personally, but as the occasion provided an opportunity for public exhibition and incidentally for getting their names into the papers they did not miss it.

Maggy was not of these. Woolf had made some engagement for her which he would not let her break. But she sent a wreath. It was quite unlike any of the others. Hers was composed of autumn-tinted leaves and the last homely flowers that one sees in cottage gardens. She purposely wished to avoid the conventional effect aimed at by the professional florist whose stiff made-to-order wreath implies such indifference to death.

Alexandra placed it at the head of the coffin. Mary Mantel had also sent one, ordered before she left for America with Lambert. But Alexandra refused to take it in. Lambert's card was inscribed "From your sorrowing husband." All the newspapers dragged in those words with a suitably unctuous comment.

Late on the afternoon of the funeral Maggy managed to evade Woolf and go to Albert Place, thinking to find Alexandra there. The blinds had not yet been drawn up, but the front door was open. Feeling an aversion from disturbing the silence of a house of mourning she went in without ringing and ascended to the room Alexandra had used. Finding it empty she came down and looked into the drawing room. It was in the green gloom of a closed jalousie and she thought it unoccupied. In that room she had spent such a pleasant half-hour with Lord Chalfont not so very long ago. Since then, disaster had befallen its owner, and she herself had been very near to death. The three events seemed associated in her mind.

She was about to draw back when a movement arrested her. At the far end she made out Chalfont. He was sitting at an escritoire with his head bent over it. After a moment of hesitation she went up to him and timidly touched him on the shoulder. Dazed by grief and with his thoughts far away he did not at first recognize her. Seeing how it was with him she gently said:

"I'm Maggy. I didn't mean to disturb you. I was looking for Lexie.... Now that I'm here I'd like to say how dreadfully sorry I am."

After he had thanked her there was a pause. His ease had temporarily left him. Maggy felt she was intruding.

"Do you know where she has gone? Lexie, I mean," she went on.

"She wrote down her address." Chalfont searched for and found it among the papers on the escritoire. "109, Sidey Street."

"Then she's gone back. That's where we used to live together."

There was another silence. Then Chalfont said:

"Will you let me know if there is anything I can do for her? Mrs. Lambert was very interested in her—and yourself. Indeed—" here he hesitated a little—"the last word she spoke was your name. That is why I—"

The color came into Maggy's face. She did not let him finish.

"Did she—did she say anything else?"

"No; only your name. She seemed to be concerned about you."

Maggy nodded.

"She knew all about me," she said in an explanatory tone. "She was worried because I had been ill, I expect. She was like that, I know.... And she knew I—I wasn't married."

Her meaning was quite plain, as plain as the wedding-ring on her ungloved hand. In her honesty she thought the admission was due to Chalfont after he had apprized her of Mrs. Lambert's interest in her. His manner of doing so had implied friendship. She did not want to accept that under false pretenses.

Chalfont was quick to appreciate her motive in making the confession. If possible it raised her in his estimation. But it filled him with a curious sense of disappointment. In spite of the absence of a legal bond between Mrs. Lambert and himself he had a strong distaste for free alliances. He had chafed against circumstances in his own case, and he was far from sitting in judgment on Maggy's. Still, he could not help the shock they had on his feelings.

"You didn't think I was that sort," she said, guessing at what was in his mind. "Lexie's not, but I'm different. I'm not a lady. It wasn't only because I wanted clothes and jewelry, or because I was hungry that—that it happened. I did hate going without things. But it was because I met a man who made me feel—like jelly. If he'd had nothing a year I would have gone to the devil with him just the same.... I'm telling you all this to show you why we can't be friends, although I know you're ever so kind."

"Can we not? Mrs. Lambert was your friend."

"I can't think why." Tears came into her eyes. "There aren't many women like her.... You loved her, didn't you?"

"I loved her very dearly. More than she loved me. Though she loved me as much as I deserved," he added quickly.

"And she loved her husband. I know. I think he must be a pig! ... Why do we love things that are bad for us, and men that don't care for us? ... You would have married her, wouldn't you?"

"That was what I desired more than anything else," he rejoined in a voice full of regret.

This unreserved talk did not strike either of them as strange. Chalfont was usually sphynx-like about his innermost feelings, but with Maggy it seemed unnecessary to hide them. It did him good to unburden his heart to her. Maggy not only inspired confidence, she attracted it. It gave her a double hold on sympathy.

"She would have been 'my lady' then," she said thoughtfully. "What a draw that would be to a lot of women—the women who don't put love first. It's when we love that we don't think what we get by it.... If the Earl of the Scilly Isles came crawling all the way from Scotland and wanted me to marry him I wouldn't leave Woolf."

Chalfont lost sight of her amazing geography in the surprise he felt at the name she mentioned.

"Woolf! What Woolf?" he stared.

"Fred Woolf," she said with a touch of pride. "He owns the Jockey's Weekly and Primus cars. You must have heard of Biretta, his racehorse."

"Oh!"

Chalfont was incapable of more than the exclamation. He knew all about Woolf. Sudden pity for Maggy took hold of him. He could not run the man down; he could not tell her that Woolf's name stank in the nostrils of decent-minded men; that even the men who fraternized with him took care to keep their womenfolk out of his reach. He could not tell her of Woolf's shady reputation on the turf, at the card table, and in the city. He saw that it would be useless to do so, and also cruel.

"You've met him, haven't you?" she asked.

"I've seen him at race-meetings and—and once at a club to which I belong."

She nodded. "Fred goes everywhere."

Chalfont did not pursue the subject.

"I must go now," said Maggy. "Good-by.... Oh, I forgot to thank you for the roses." She colored, remembering the fate they had suffered.

"I'm glad you liked them. They were Mrs. Lambert's favorites."

"Oh, were they? If I'd known that I would have got some instead of the wreath I sent."

"It was a beautiful wreath—so simple. She wouldn't have wished it altered if she could have seen it. It didn't remind one of a funeral."

"I didn't want it to. I felt I couldn't just go and give an order to a florist who grows flowers on purpose for graves. I was up ever so early this morning and motored into the country. The dew was all over the hedges. That's where I got the leaves from. And in the cottage gardens wherever I saw the sort of flowers I'd have liked some one to give me, whether I was dead or alive, I stopped and asked the woman to pick me a few for a wreath for a sweet lady. They were so pleased to give them. Not one would take payment. They were given flowers, given for love, fresh and—"

She broke off, shy at having exhibited her feelings. It saddened Chalfont to think of her in association with such a man as Woolf. In spite of it she was still something of a child, with a child's pretty thoughts. But the next moment her womanliness showed itself.

"Are you going away?" she asked. "I would, if I were a man and had lost all I loved I should go away to places where I could kill something. Wild places, where there's solitude and danger, so that it would be quite sporting to keep alive.... You'd come back feeling different ... and perhaps marry some nice girl who would love you and make up for all that's happened.... I think Mrs. Lambert would wish that."

She spoke as if Mrs. Lambert were not so far away.

"What makes you say that?" he wondered.

"Because—because she told me things." Maggy hesitated. "May I draw up the blinds before I go?"

They pulled up the blinds together and let the autumn sunshine into the room. Maggy threw up one of the windows. They stood side by side looking at the movement in the street. Around a barrel organ a little way off children were dancing. A man and a girl, looking into each other's eyes, passed under the window. On the opposite side a woman was wheeling a perambulator, running every now and then so that the baby in it screamed with delight. The roar of London's traffic came from a distance. Maggy's eyes grew soft.

"Life goes on," she said.

XXVI

The landlady of 109 Sidey Street opened the door to Maggy.

"Goodness me!" were her first words. "Whatever have you been doing to yourself, Miss Delamere? You are thin!"

"I've had appendicitis," said Maggy.

Mrs. Bell's face immediately indicated the thirsty interest which people of her class take in any form of illness. She closed the door carefully. A hushed note came into her voice.

"Appendicitis! What did they find?"

"Latchkey and a bath mat," said Maggy solemnly.

Mrs. Bell looked offended, also disappointed.

"What a one you always were for jokes," she complained. "I believe you'd joke in your coffin. Talking of coffins—"

"I hope you've not been talking of such things to Miss Hersey," Maggy interrupted.

"Not talk about them? And she just come back from a funeral! What else would any one talk about? Not that she said much, mind you. I only know there was a carriage-full of wreaths besides what was in the hearse. I'll have to wait for the rest of it in the Sunday paper. Miss Hersey wouldn't say what the corpse looked like."

Mrs. Bell was wound up. Maggy knew that the only way to avoid a repetition of the ghoulish verbosity from which Alexandra must already have suffered was to get away.

"Where is Miss Hersey?" she asked, beginning to mount the stairs. "Same room?"

"No; a shunter from King's Cross has that now. Such a nice-spoken young feller. Miss Hersey's in the room with the cistern. I'll bring you up a nice cup of tea directly, dear. I won't put it down in her bill," she whispered in a burst of generosity.

Upstairs in the room with the cistern the two girls ran into one another's arms. But Maggy was not to escape a repetition of the scrutiny that Mrs. Bell had given her downstairs. After their embrace Alexandra drew back and looked at her with concern.

"Maggy!" she exclaimed. "Have you been ill? There's nothing of you."

"Rubbish!" said Maggy. "It's all over, anyway. I'm what they call svelte in the society papers. I was all face and fatness before. Fred says I'm a lady-like size now. It's the 'Willow' corset. I'm in the Ladies' Field this week. Such a sketch! Just a chemise and— But don't let's talk about me. Lexie, I wanted to ask you something. Mrs. Lambert wrote to me two or three times, and I wrote to her. Do you know if she tore the letters up?"

"I found them. Lord Chalfont asked me to look through a lot of her papers, and your letters were there. They were marked in pencil 'Destroy.' I expect she meant to have done it, so I tore them up myself. There were three letters and a postcard. I couldn't help seeing what was on the postcard—'All over, Maggy.' What did you mean?"

Under her paint and powder Maggy flushed a little.

"Oh, that was—about my illness. Thank you for destroying the letters, Lexie. There was nothing in them I couldn't have told you, but they were about things you'd rather not know."

"Then you have been ill?"

"Rest cure, my dear. Forget it."

"I'm not hurt because you wrote to her about it instead of me."

"You needn't be. Was it nice being with her?"

Alexandra told her all about the tour. While she talked Maggy began to notice a subtle change in her. Her views seemed to have grown broader. She appeared to be more tolerant of human failings. Her old, hard attitude toward them had disappeared. She showed this by the manner in which she spoke of Mrs. Lambert and Chalfont. It was entirely sympathetic.

"Lexie, you're different," declared Maggy in surprise when she had done. "You've come alive!"

"I don't feel quite the same," Alexandra admitted. "I believe I'm—changing. I've been trying to think things out, Maggy." There was puzzledom in her voice.

"What sort of things?"

"Principally morals and—lack of morals.... Not long ago I had everything neatly labeled and pigeon-holed in my mind. Things were either good or bad. People the same. Now all the labels seem to have come off.... Really, I'm not half so good as poor Mrs. Lambert was, and yet she did what I always considered so wrong. She lived with Lord Chalfont. The strange thing is it didn't make either of them bad. They were just like two married people who had the deepest respect for each other."

Maggy gave a nod of comprehension. "And that puzzles you?" she asked.

"Yes, in a way."

"I think I know why. You're asking yourself whether that sort of thing is really bad, after all, since it didn't drag them down. You've got the labels wrong, mixing up morals with people and putting them all together in the honey-pot. The stage, I mean. It's a contaminating place, right enough. The wonder is how anybody gets out of it clean. Some people can drink filthy water and keep healthy, and others get typhoid from it. It doesn't alter the water. What makes me sorry is that nice people like Mrs. Lambert and Lord Chalfont and you should have to drink it at all. The worst of it is you can't tell whether it's done you any harm until it's worked right into your system, and then you're generally past help. That rather proves that immorality is a sort of disease, probably a microbe, which thrives especially on the stage. What a pity they can't vaccinate us against it when we're babies. It would have done me good. I'm an example of the corruption of the stage, if you're looking for one."

"You're nothing of the kind, Maggy!"

"Yes, I am. If I hadn't been on the stage Fred wouldn't have thought I was easy fruit, and I shouldn't have known what he wanted from the start. I went over the line because I knew living with him was all he expected, or I could expect. I don't say I wouldn't rather be married and respectable, but as I couldn't have Fred that way, I've got to put up without it. Marriage and the stage are like oil and vinegar. They don't mix. Look at Mrs. Lambert and her husband. Look at the girls who marry noblemen. Don't they keep the divorce court busy? And you can't do any good on the stage without a man at the back of you. Make up your mind to that. You've got to bury your conscience like a dog does a bone. At first you keep on going back to it to see if it's there, and one day you forget all about it, or you find it's gone. That's the big difference between you and the dog.... So you've come back to this hole, Lexie. Do you think I don't know what you feel about it? You're like Cinderella, only you've been to the funeral of your fairy god-mother. I suppose you'll hold out while your money lasts, and then begin the old fight all over again. But there won't be so much fight left in you. You don't feel like fighting. You don't feel the same. You said so, just now.... Lexie dear, don't think of your old pal Maggy as a she-devil taking you up on top of a mountain and tempting you. But I do want you to make the most of your chances. I honestly believe if you take things as they come you won't be sorry. You're sure to meet some nice man sometime. If he's able to—to keep you, do give in. If you love him you'll want to. And what's the use of giving love the cold shoulder simply because he doesn't always go about with a marriage license in his pocket? If it's wrong to talk like that all I can say is I'd rather love without marriage than not love at all, even though I knew I was going to be burnt to a cinder for it."

"Perhaps I'm asbestos—"

"All the better if you are: you'll stand it better. Anyhow, asbestos gets hot.... Lexie, I haven't a regret in the world. I was a bit down on my luck before I was ill, but now I'm well again, I'm glad that I'm Maggy who loves her Fred."

Alexandra sat staring in front of her, turning Maggy's advice over in her mind. She knew she meant every word she said. She recalled Mrs. Lambert's views about the stage. She had less faith in her powers of endurance now. Privation and disappointment had done their work. In easy circumstances any one may withstand temptation: surrender comes with adversity. At the present moment Alexandra was not actually in touch with adversity. She felt capable of holding out against temptation.

"I shan't give in," she said with a little of her old tenacity. "I'm going to try and write."

"What?" asked Maggy blankly.

"My experiences."

"But you haven't had any."

"You and Mrs. Lambert and all that you both have told me are experiences."

This was a new aspect of Alexandra. It mystified Maggy.

"But can you write?" she asked doubtfully.

"I—I think so. At least I've made a beginning."

"It seems so funny. Fred says that actresses can't write. All those things you see in the magazines and the Jockey's Weekly by actresses all about themselves, with photos stuck in between, aren't written by them. The printer does it."

"Not the printer, surely?"

"Well, the man from the paper. It's all the same. I've been interviewed and I know. All I did was to sign my name at the end. It came out in The Housewife."

"What I meant was a serious article. Something true."

"But nobody wants to read anything serious about the stage," Maggy contended. "It's for pleasure.... Fancy you writing! Do let me see what you've done, Lexie."

Alexandra went over to the chest of drawers and came back with her article. It was in manuscript. She handed it over shyly.

"Why, it's pages and pages!" exclaimed Maggy, with the bewilderment of one to whom the space on a postcard presents difficulties.

She commenced to read aloud from it.

"'The stage as a profession for women has frequently been a subject of discussion. Seldom however has it occurred to any one to descant on it as a profession for ladies...'

"We're always called ladies of the profession," debated Maggy, and read on.

"'... To do this effectively one must first try and arrive at the proper definition of the term "lady," and when one has done so enquire into the economic and moral effects which the stage may have on her if she should embark on...'"

Maggy raised enquiring, rather helpless, eyes.

"Does this mean you're a Suffragette?" she asked.

"No, of course not."

Maggy skipped a paragraph.

"'A lady, we will say, is one who, apart from the question of birth, has been brought up to respect the usual conventions of social life. Let us now consider how far those conventions are respected on the stage.'"

As she turned the pages, singling out portions of them at random, she found it very hard reading. She thought it like the leaders in the daily paper, which she always skipped. In reality, it was not a bad little article for a beginner, in spite of its consciously correct phraseology and want of cohesion of idea. But as an unglossed commentary concerning the ethical side of stage life it provided food for thought.

"I suppose it's brainy," said Maggy, handing it back. "It doesn't sound a bit like you though. I hope I'm not a wet blanket, but I think you'll get sick of the crumply plop it will make coming back through the letter-box. It's not what you ever see in the papers. You may ask things about inferior flannelette or horrid sausages or white slaves, and it's all right. But the truth about the stage! Well, there, it's written now, so you may as well post it; but if I were you, I'd go and see the editor in the morning before he's had time to read it."

"Why?" enquired Alexandra innocently.

"Well ... if he's young—and impressionable—it might— No, on second thoughts, don't."

Tea came in. By the side of the teapot Mrs. Bell had ostentatiously placed a small medicine bottle. She had also provided what purported to be a cake.

"I sent out for 'three' of gin," she said, beaming placidly at the bottle.

"Whatever for?" demanded Alexandra.

"For a dash in your tea, dear. Seeing as how you've just come from a funeral—"

Alexandra's face showed a repugnance. Mrs. Bell looked grieved. Maggy intervened.

"Miss Hersey only drinks champagne now," she said cheerily. "Doctor's orders. And I've sworn off. You trot off with it downstairs. Gin's good for landladies."

XXVII

Alexandra's bad luck held.

The only engagements she was offered she could not accept. One was in provincial pantomime and therefore not immediate, another a "walk-on" at a London theater, for which a premium of £10 was asked. Suggestions were made to her by doubtful-looking touring managers which besides being only tentative were also unwholesome. One agent made it impossible for her to go and see him again.

The soul-sickening chase after employment continued for several weeks. By husbanding the money she had saved while on tour with Mrs. Lambert she was able to keep out of debt; but time was against her. Soon she would be unable to do without a fire in her room. Coals at six-pence a scuttle sounded to her like extravagance and were therefore prohibitive. She did not think it likely she would be able to find a cheaper lodging, or at any rate one where the landlady was as honest as Mrs. Bell. In Sidey Street she could at least make sure that if half a herring was left over at breakfast the other half would be available at supper time.

Mrs. Bell was also "particular" about sheets and cleanliness generally. She took an open pride in having a lodger who indulged in a daily bath. The blush of modesty often came to Alexandra's face as she heard the fact being exultantly advertised on the stairs to some new or would-be tenant. Her landlady used it as a testimonial. Once a week, too, the little room with the cistern was "done out," which meant that Mrs. Bell used a duster for a motor-veil and threw the furniture out on the landing. For these reasons 109 Sidey Street was tolerable. The lodgers there were respectable. True, the shunter from King's Cross Station had the room overhead, but as he did not import his boisterous occupation into domestic life Alexandra found him unobjectionable.

She saw a good deal of Maggy, but Maggy was only able to offer advice and the use of her purse, neither of which Alexandra would accept. It hurt her to refuse. The advice she could not reconcile with her conscience: the money, being Woolf's, seemed tainted. All this while her one attempt at literature had kept returning to her with hopeless monotony. A month had elapsed since she had last seen it. She had all but forgotten it when a letter unexpectedly reached her, nebulously signed "The Editor," requesting her to call at the offices of his paper.

She went there full of a natural excitement at the prospect of hearing that her article was to be printed. To her chagrin the Editor, otherwise quite a pleasant person, disillusioned her on this point.

"It's quite all right," he told her; "but I can't use it."

"Then why did you send for me?" asked poor Alexandra helplessly.

"For one reason, because I saw you knew your subject, and it struck me you might put your knowledge to a more commercial use. My dear young lady, there isn't a paper in England that would print this as it stands."

Alexandra had nothing to say.

"It's quite simple," he went on. "Papers live by advertisement. The stage is one of their sources of revenue. Besides, it doesn't pay to vilify the stage. It's too popular. We have to butter it up. Look at this," he flicked over the pages of his popular weekly. "Full of photos of stage beauties, with a eulogistic paragraph to each. Many of them paid for. Well, we can't publish a picture of, say, Miss Tottie Fluff on one page and an indictment of her morals on the next. Now can we?"

"I—I suppose not," said Alexandra, vastly impressed by this amiable frankness.

"If you'll be guided by me you'll leave the question of stage morality alone. The press, the public and the profession all unite in a conspiracy of silence about it. You're on the stage, I suppose?"

"Generally off," said Alexandra.

"Doing anything now?"

"No, I wish I were."

"Well, look here: why not write something in a chatty way about theatrical matters? Take the exact opposite view to what you have here. Treat the stage sympathetically. Point out its elevating influence on the masses. Sugar it all up. And, I say, not twelve pages: a thousand words or so. I'll give you thirty shillings for it."

Alexandra went back to Sidey Street and sat down to try and write fulsome untruths about the stage. She thought and thought. The ink dried on her pen. Presently an idea came. She commenced to write swiftly. When she had covered two pages she stopped and read them over, realizing what she was doing. For the paltry sum of thirty shillings she, who recoiled from sacrificing her body, was prostituting her pen.

She put it down and deliberately tore the sheets into fragments, so small that she would not be tempted to piece them together again.

Not for thirty pieces of silver!

XXVIII

The cistern, that prominent feature of Alexandra's bedroom, was for once in a way overshadowed. So to speak, it was put out of countenance. If a cistern—squat, square, and forbidding as this one was—could have expressed itself it would have done so in the form of a gasp.

For, on the bed lay the sable coat, muff and toque and half-a-dozen unworn French frocks. Such richness could never have been seen in Sidey Street before. Alexandra's emotions as she stood and stared at them were indescribable.

They had come—several huge cardboard boxes—that afternoon—with a letter from a firm of solicitors stating that the furs and the dresses were a legacy from Mrs. Lambert. The reason why they had not been delivered before was that the executors of the will were ignorant of Miss Hersey's whereabouts. Lord Chalfont had, however, now returned to London and had given them her address.

And there they lay, beautiful and costly, in startling contrast with the cistern and the other unlovely appurtenances of the room. Alexandra supposed the furs must be worth quite a hundred pounds. The irony of the situation was not lost upon her. Here she was in a fireless room, dreadfully hungry, and there on the bed lay valuables which nothing would induce her to sell because they were a gift from the dear dead.

A day or two ago she had found herself regretting the destruction of that sugary eulogy of the stage. She had reconstructed it, but so unsuccessfully that in the end she decided against posting it. The editor in all probability would have forgotten her existence.

It was now late November and a particularly cheerless specimen of the month. She was glad to leave her fireless room each morning for the warmth of the agents' offices, always hoping against hope that something would turn up. Pride made her hide her straitened circumstances from Maggy. She still refused to borrow from her friend. Maggy's counsel was always the same: "Climb down, Lexie. Go back to De Freyne. He'll very likely take you on again."

She put out a cold hand and touched the furs. They were so rich, so soft; they signified the very quintessence of warmth. All she had had for her lunch that day was cold rice pudding—rice pudding made with three parts of water to one of milk. She felt as if she would never thaw again. It was sheer desire for warmth that made her suddenly discard her thin black serge for one of the new acquisitions, a dark brown velvet dress.

Over it she slipped the fur coat. The warmth of it was better than a fire. It permeated her, sent a glow all through her chilled body. She looked at herself as well as she was able in the small mirror on her dressing-table and—thought of De Freyne. De Freyne only wanted well-dressed girls. She was well-dressed now. She had enough frocks to keep her looking expensively dressed for many months. She could not go another week without an engagement. Her money would not hold out longer than that. Even supposing that De Freyne, following his usual custom, should want to put her in the way of what he termed "a chance," she need not necessarily avail herself of it. It was sophistry and she knew it. Allowing herself no more time for thought she put on the toque, picked up the muff and went out.

A motorbus took her to the theater. There she asked to see De Freyne, fearful lest he should have forgotten her name. But De Freyne had not forgotten it nor her. He saw her at once. He remembered the circumstances under which he had dismissed her, her inability to dress up to his standard and her resolve to keep straight. That had been too novel to slip his memory.

His jaded, practised eyes took in her changed appearance, and priced her furs more accurately than she had done. He knew they must have cost a good many hundreds, and wondered who had paid for them. But he made no comment and asked no questions. He would hear all about it in good time.

"Come for a fresh contract?" was all he said. "That's right."

Alexandra had not got back to Sidey Street when Maggy knocked at her door. She looked very fetching and contented in a gray squirrel coat, a present from Woolf. She often contrasted her lot with Alexandra's and felt uncomfortable when she thought of all she had and all that her poor proud Lexie went without.

When she heard that the latter was out she decided to await her in her room. Mrs. Bell accompanied her up to it. The first thing Maggy noticed was the absence of a fire. The tidy grate showed that it had not been lit that day. She shivered.

"What time do you expect her in?" she asked.

"She's sure to be back by half-past four," said Mrs. Bell.

"Well, hadn't you better light the fire?"

Mrs. Bell pursed her lips.

"She don't like her room hot," she mumbled.

"Nonsense; it's freezing!"

A look, such as a person who is about to reveal a State secret wears, came into the landlady's face. She dropped her voice to a tone proper to confidences.

"To tell you the truth, Miss Delamere, I'm sadly afraid the poor dear hasn't the money to pay for a fire. I've lit a bit of a one sometimes on my own, but coals is coals, and I've my living to make."

"My goodness! You ought to have told me," said Maggy accusingly. "You know I would have paid for it."

"That's what I told her; but she wouldn't have it. I don't like to think what'll be the end of her going on like this. She's so different to any one I ever come across. I've let rooms to ladies of the profession for fifteen years. There was Freddie Aragon. She left me to go off with a trick bicyclist, and after that she took up with a baronet. I forget the name. Then there was Cleo Kaydor who got married to a jockey in church. She used to come and see me—"

"I can smell something burning!" Maggy broke in, and the tide of Mrs. Bell's reminiscences was immediately stemmed. She clattered downstairs to enquire into the false alarm.

Maggy lit the fire and settled herself before it with a book which she found lying about. It was one which failed to sustain her interest. Gradually she dozed and ultimately dropped off asleep. By the time Alexandra returned the fire had burnt red, warming the room to a pleasant and unaccustomed temperature. As she came in Maggy woke up with a start, unable to believe the sight that met her eyes. They went from the sable coat and muff to the toque and back again. Astonishment and the lovely effect they produced on their wearer took her breath away.

"Lexie!" she cried. "Where did you get them? You look a princess! Is it—you don't mean— Are—are you ruined?" she quaintly stammered.

Alexandra explained how she had come by the furs. If Maggy had not been so intent on Mrs. Lambert's legacy she would have noticed an odd look in their wearer's face.

"Oh, my dear, they're perfect!" she exclaimed. "Real sable!" She clutched at the arm nearest her. "Lexie, go and see De Freyne in them. He'll think you've married Rockefeller—or ought to!"

"I've just come from him," said Alexandra in a weak voice. "He's taken me on again."

XXIX

De Freyne was puzzled about Alexandra. Her furs and her frocks baffled him. When it transpired that she was still living in Sidey Street she became more than ever an enigma to him. He could not reconcile that neighborhood with her new and expensive appearance. Business instincts apart from curiosity made him keep an eye on her. Some acquaintance with the private affairs of his fair and usually frail merchandise was sometimes of value to him. Like a good tradesman it was his habit to take stock of it.

One thing he could not reconcile with Alexandra's apparent opulence: he never saw her lunching or supping at the Savoy or similar places. Nor did she appear to have a motor-car, that invariable sign of private advancement. Not knowing what to make of it he was reduced to detaining Maggy on pretext of business one matinée afternoon and sounding her about her friend.

"By the way," he observed casually, after mildly cautioning her against a want of punctuality of which she had been guilty on the previous night. "By the way, Miss Hersey seems to have come to her senses at last. But why does her friend keep in the background?"

Maggy saw that De Freyne took it for granted that Alexandra had a man behind her. She also knew that it would not be to her advantage to correct the assumption. She even deemed it wise to stimulate his imagination. It was easy to do that with a mysterious smile and a knowing shake of the head.

"It's a bit of a State secret," she said with just the right amount of hesitation. "I oughtn't to say anything about it. I—I've never seen his Roy—him, I mean."

De Freyne pricked up his ears.

"But you know who he is? Some foreigner, I suppose?"

"Oh, there wouldn't be any need for secrecy about a foreigner," protested Maggy with wicked plausibility.

He put a few more questions but she refused to be drawn.

De Freyne was anything but gullible, but Maggy's artfulness quite took him in. Her hesitation alone was convincing proof that she knew more than she would tell. She gleefully retailed the conversation to Woolf later in the day.

"Mischievous little devil!" he grinned, amused by her audacity. "What does your precious Lexie say?"

"She doesn't say anything because I shan't tell her. She'd probably go straight to De Freyne and blab out the truth, which wouldn't do her any good. He'll think more of her now. At any rate he won't bother her with men."

Woolf grunted. He could never understand why Maggy was always suggesting that though a thing might be adequate to herself it was not of necessity good enough for her friend.

Maggy was not far wrong about De Freyne's subsequent attitude toward Alexandra. Nothing was said, but all the same she began to receive more consideration. De Freyne kept an open eye on the stalls and boxes for any distinguished personage who might be there on her account. On two nights in succession one such happened to be among the audience. This lent color to Maggy's powers of invention. Alexandra was at once promoted to the front row. When, a week later, a young American Croesus made advances to De Freyne for an introduction to the "tall, dark girl on the extreme right," he was put off with airy nonchalance.

"Not the least use, my dear sir," said De Freyne. "Between you and me, a certain royal personage is in the way there. But have a look at the filly next to her, to-night. She's only sixteen."

De Freyne would not have felt flattered had he been told that his methods differed little from those of the astute tradesman who, not having a particular article in stock, never hesitates to try and palm off the nearest equivalent on his customer. Meanwhile he was debating whether it would not be wise to interpolate a small part for Alexandra. The upshot was that he sent for her and heard her sing. The quality of her voice surprised him.

"Damn it, you know how!" he observed. "Why didn't you tell us you could sing?"

"I sang at the voice trial," she said.

"Oh, then! You weren't sensible in those days. I must see what I can do for you." He turned to his stage-manager, who was present. "'Phone Goss and Lander to come round. I want to talk over a new song to be put in for Miss Hersey."

The sudden stroke of luck quite confounded Alexandra. Just as Maggy was unaware of the far-reaching effects of her hints, so was she unable to account for her preferment. She hardly dared to believe it would materialize. But a couple of days later her new song and the script of a few lines of dialogue to introduce it were handed to her. She was to have a week in which to rehearse them.

De Freyne watched some of these rehearsals, giving much mental consideration to the style of costume best suited to the singer. In the end he thought out a design in sprigged muslin, looped with turquoise ribbon. It would have a refined and childish effect. Refinement, homeopathically prescribed, would by its contrast look well on the stage of the Pall Mall.

What De Freyne was not prepared for was an expression of gratitude from Alexandra. After her first rehearsal she sought him in his office. He assumed that, after the manner of her kind, she had come to ask for an increase of salary.

"Well, aren't you satisfied?" he enquired, hoping to put her off.

"I've come to thank you," was her shy answer. "It's so kind of you, Mr. De Freyne. I'm very grateful."

He was so unaccustomed to being thanked by the members of his chorus, and so seldom deserved any, that for a moment he was taken aback.

"That's all right," he rejoined. "All I want is that you don't show any nervousness. Audiences only allow for nervousness on the first night of a piece. After that it fidgets them. I'm going to Lucille's for your dress. It's to be à la jeune fille. No shocks to your modesty. As for the rest, well, I daresay you'll introduce me to H.R.H. one of these days, eh?"

It was more a statement than a question, and De Freyne did not wait for an answer. When they met after the performance that night Alexandra, rather bewildered, told Maggy of her good fortune and De Freyne's curious remark. Maggy's delight was such that she jumped.

"Oh, my dear!" she cried. "I'll tell you now. First it was your furs and then it was me. We've done the trick between us. But come away from the theater or some one will hear me and then all the fat will be in the fire!"

She dragged Alexandra away from the stage-door and described her interview with De Freyne. Alexandra listened petrified.

"Maggy, how could you?" she protested piteously. "I—I can't let him go on thinking such a mad thing! I shall have to tell him it isn't true."

"You mustn't, mustn't, mustn't!" commanded Maggy vehemently. "Don't you see it's good for you? If you do he'll take away your song and put that Vandaleur man on your track. He's after little Graves now, but he let out to her that he tried to get to know you, only De Freyne told him he hadn't an earthly. Graves told me that herself. And you don't want to get me the sack, do you? After all, Lexie dear," she wheedled, "I made it a royalty, didn't I? I didn't think any one else good enough."

"I know you meant it for the best. But—but it's such a horrid idea and so—so far-fetched. De Freyne is sure to find out sooner or later."

"So long as it's later it's all right. You make the most of it while he's dreaming of meeting your prince and smoking a cigar with him in public, and p'raps getting the order of the Boot in diamonds to wear on his chest. It'll do him good to be disappointed."

Alexandra would not have been human had she refused to listen to such reasoning. She might have argued that De Freyne had recognized her talent. But she very well knew that was not the case. It was quite evident to her that had she been without talent or voice he would have commissioned Goss and Lander to write her a song on two notes all the same.

"I'll chance it, Maggy," she announced finally.

"That's right," said Maggy, greatly relieved, and then became abstracted. "You ought to have some diamonds to wear on the night," she added presently. "I wish I knew an I.D.B."

XXX

Diamonds for Alexandra had been no random idea of Maggy's. The question of how to provide them, or at least some jewelry for her to wear on the great occasion, continued to exercise her mind. She woke up full of it the next morning. If they were to be obtained, though only for one night, De Freyne would be wonderfully and awfully impressed. And Maggy was right. De Freyne's estimate of a girl was largely influenced by the intrinsic value of what she carried upon her person.

Woolf could be of no help in this matter. He very seldom cared to discuss Alexandra at all, and considering that he had not shown any inclination to supply Maggy herself with any jewelry worth mentioning he was hardly likely to do more for her friend.

Then a daring thought came into her head. Alexandra had told her that Lord Chalfont was back in London. Couldn't he do something? Ever a slave to the enthusiasm of the moment, she looked up Chalfont's address in the telephone index and then drove there. Her heart went into her mouth as she thought of what Woolf would say if he knew where she was bound for. But that did not stop her. She was one of Nature's gamblers, and the element of danger in the undertaking gave her a certain relish for it.

Chalfont was just going to sit down to his breakfast—it was only half-past nine—when she was announced. The earliness of her visit surprised him, but he was none the less pleased to see her. Many times during his absence he had recalled her pretty face, her extraordinary gift of honest frankness, and above all the sympathetic womanliness she had shown at their last meeting.

"I expect you think I'm mad coming to see you so early in the morning," she began.

"I'm glad to see you at any time," he said. "Have you had breakfast?"

"I snatched it. I wanted to catch you in, and I didn't want my Fred to know. He wouldn't like me to be here. Of course, I shan't tell him, because I've come in a good cause. Can you lend me some diamonds?"

He was a little staggered by the request. He would have been prepared to swear that Maggy was not of the grasping sort, and yet here she was, admittedly against the regulations, blandly asking him for diamonds at half-past nine in the morning. He laughed.

"Look here, I haven't had breakfast yet. It's ready. Suppose you have it with me and tell me why you want them."

"May I? I should love it."

He rang the bell, and his man quickly laid another place at the table.

"Sole, omelette, kidneys?" inquired Chalfont. "You need not wait, Mitchell."

"Omelette, please," said Maggy, taking the seat he offered her before the tea and coffee equipage. "Coffee for you? And sugar?"

"Thanks."

He came back from the sideboard where he had gone to the electrically-heated stand, smiled as he served her, and took the cup she handed him.

"Do you know," he said, taking his seat, "I seem to have the feeling that we've breakfasted before."

"So have I," she rejoined. "I like it."

"Your hat spoils the illusion, though."

"How?"

"Of a woman in the house."

She unpinned it and tossed it on to a chair. The reluctance that had made her retain it that day so many months ago when she had lunched for the first time with Woolf was quite absent now.

"Well, what about the diamonds?" asked Chalfont.

"They're not for me. I want them for Lexie. But it must be a secret. She'd shake me if she knew. She's back again at the Pall Mall now."

"I wanted to ask you about her. What is she doing there?"

"I'll tell you all from the beginning," said Maggy. "This omelette's splendid. It was through her legacy. The furs and the dresses poor Mrs. Lambert left her."

Chalfont nodded.

"Well, Lexie had a hard time for weeks. She couldn't get an engagement anywhere. So when the furs came she togged herself out in them and went and saw De Freyne. He took her on again because he thought she'd got rich quick, and that there was a man in it. He was awfully puzzled. Instead of asking her he tried to pump me, and I found myself telling stories." Her face screwed up funnily. "Oh, I let him think! He fancies it's a royalty—a prince—who's running Lexie, and he's given her a part and a song on the strength of it. It goes in three days from now. It's an awfully big thing for her. I've persuaded her not to split—not to let on that her prince is all a fairy story. As I put it to her: she can't come to much harm with an imaginary man. Now, on the night she'll look so bare."

"Bare?" echoed Chalfont.

"Bare of jewelry, I mean."

"Oh, I see!"

"Her dress is white and pink and turquoise, a duck of a thing. But she won't have a single ornament to wear; so if De Freyne is to go on believing what I told him about the prince she ought to have some. Diamonds for choice. It doesn't matter about afterwards. He'll have seen them once and think she's put them away for safety. Now that's where you can help. If you'll lend them I'll make her wear them. You have got some diamonds, haven't you?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes, in the bank. Of course I'll lend you some," said Chalfont readily. "I'll telephone through if you like and tell the bank to send them along. How will that do?"

"Splendid! That is good of you."

"Not at all. I'm very glad to be able to help Miss Hersey. Besides, I wouldn't for worlds spoil the practical joke you've played on De Freyne." He laughed. "It's one of the best things I ever heard of."

"And you won't let on to Lexie?"

"Not a word. It shall be our secret."

"I knew I could count on you," said Maggy confidently.

Chalfont looked at his watch. It was ten now, and the bank would be open, so he went to the telephone and gave the necessary instructions.

"Where have you been all this while?" Maggy asked him when he came back to his seat. "I wondered whether you would take my advice and plump for some wild place."

"As it happens it's just as well I didn't. You wouldn't be pouring out coffee for me if I had gone to the Rockies or Central Africa," he smiled. "I went for a commonplace cruise to Madeira and back instead."

"I'm glad you didn't, now.... Do you feel better—about things?"

He knew she was thinking of Mrs. Lambert, and liked her all the better for her indefiniteness. It showed delicacy.

"I think so," he answered. "I have often recalled something you said when we stood at the window of the little house in Albert Place: 'Life goes on,' were the words. I'm going on with mine. I'm trying to make the best of it."

"I like to hear that. Love isn't meant to mope over. It's the sort of thing to remember with praise and thanksgiving when it's gone. When the loved one's gone, I mean. When you come to think of it love's a curious thing. It's like a very sharp two-edged sword. You handle it so carelessly that it gives you scratches and cuts and wounds that are so deep that even when they heal they throb for years afterwards. I wonder how I should feel—if my love stopped. I think my life would stop too. I shouldn't be brave enough to go on with things.... That doesn't fit in very well with what I said just now about not moping, does it?"