Front matter (continued 4)

Chalfont answered her with a question of his own.

"What is love like to you?"

"To me? A burning, fiery furnace. All great waves beating on me and smashing me about."

"Isn't that passion?"

"I don't know. If it is it's like that stuff everybody's talking about—radium. It gives off heat and loses none." She remained lost in thought for a while. "Perhaps I should feel different if I were—married.... I dream of it sometimes."

She was dreaming then. Chalfont saw it in her eyes. Her artlessness seemed a wonderful thing to him.

"The odd thing is," she went on, "when I'm imagining that I forget all about the man. It's like having a sort of marriage service all to yourself."

"Tell me."

"Oh, it's silly.... I think of it to make me go to sleep instead of counting silly sheep. It makes me float off as if I were on a lovely cloud. First I hear the church bells ringing—quite loud, pealing; and my heart goes thumpetty-thump because I'm going to be married, which I shall never be in my life. It seems so important and grand. And then I dress. That doesn't interest me very much; but I like the look of my face through the white veil. It's misty, like a summer morning.... Then I'm in church—a great church, perhaps a cathedral, and as I go up the aisle it's as if God is playing the organ, and I'm walking on all His stars."

There was quite a wonderful look in her beautiful face. She seemed to have forgotten Chalfont. He kept quite still waiting for her to go on.

"And then the service begins. I read it once. Parts of it I shall never forget. In the church there are stacks of white flowers and lilies. It's all so quiet and awful—only the clergyman's voice.... I feel choking and I can't see because my eyes are full of tears.... There must be sacred love. I feel it all through me.... And when it's over I'm crying. Sometimes if I'm not asleep I go on with the honeymoon. I see fields and blue sky and a homey-looking house—soft red brick—with a green lawn and cedar trees on it. Their branches stretch out to me like loving arms. I see flowers everywhere. I think it's a sort of farm, because there are cows and wondering-eyed calves with soft slobbery noses and curly, wet, rough tongues; and lambs with baby faces to make pets of; and clucking chickens and stupid broody hens. I'd be so kind to them...." She drew a long breath. The dream was broken. "Fred would say I'm dotty," she finished apologetically.

"Do you know," said Chalfont, "your thoughts are like dainty butterflies."

"There's a maggot in my brain, I expect," was her dry rejoinder, dispelling her romantic mood.

Mitchell came in to say that a messenger had arrived from the bank. Chalfont excused himself and left the room. A minute or two later he came back and took Maggy into another room. On one of its tables stood two mahogany boxes. Unlocking them he lifted the lids and moved aside for her to see.

"I think you'll find what you want here," he said.

The top tray of one of the boxes was studded with fine rings; the other held necklaces and bracelets—diamonds, rubies, emeralds and pearls. Underneath, when he removed the trays, Maggy's eyes opened wide at a magnificent tiara and other gemmed ornaments.

"Do they all belong to you?" she gasped.

"Yes, in a sense. They were my mother's. They have belonged to many a Lady Chalfont in the past."

"Then if you marry they will belong to your wife?"

"If I marry."

A mischievous look came into Maggy's face.

"I don't suppose the future Lady Chalfont would like to see Miss Maggy Delamere taking her pick," she said. She became serious again. "I shan't sleep comfortably while I have them."

"I shall," smiled Chalfont. "Will you choose what you want?"

Maggy made a discreet choice, avoiding the tiara and the more splendid objects much as she would have liked to see them on Alexandra. Chalfont put the jewels into a smaller case for her. When he had done that he handed her a little pendant, a dainty thing of small diamonds with a ruby center.

"How do you like that?" he asked.

"It's sweet," said Maggy, holding it up for inspection.

"I would like you to keep it."

"I would like to keep it, too. But"—she handed it back—"I can't take it."

"My dear child, why not? It's only a little thing."

She shook her head.

"Fred wouldn't like it. He wouldn't like my coming here either. I did it because it was for somebody else. Thank you ever so much though. I do think you're kind." She gave his hand a hearty grip.

Chalfont saw her to the door.

"Lexie appears on Thursday night. Don't forget. Come and clap," were her farewell words.

She hailed a passing taxi. Chalfont helped her in. As it drove off she waved to him, smiling. To Chalfont it seemed that her smile lit the street.

XXXI

The transfer of the borrowed diamonds to Alexandra was a troublesome job. For once Maggy was reticent. In effect she said, "Ask no questions and you will be told no lies." Hers was the stronger will and in the end it prevailed. Alexandra wore them and De Freyne saw them. His shrewd eyes did not mistake them for stage jewelry. He saw they were real and was rather flabbergasted by their value. Maggy hoped and prayed he would not interrogate her again and that he would refrain from putting awkward questions to Alexandra. He did neither. He was much too satisfied with Alexandra's opulent appearance to ask questions. Moreover, he thought he could have provided answers to them himself.

Alexandra had had her baptism of stage-fright on tour. Curiously enough, when it came to walking into the limelight of the stage of the Pall Mall she was hardly nervous at all. She did not know it, but the loss of her old enthusiasm for the stage made her indifferent. Her sensations were deadened. De Freyne noticed her calmness and put it down to self-confidence, the same confidence that had procured her the attentions of her august "friend."

She did not leap into fame that night. She attracted notice. The audience thought her pretty and dainty. They found her refinement rather in the nature of a sorbet between coarser fare. They were not quite sure that they appreciated her air of unconcern but it impressed them. So did her diamonds.

De Freyne was very pleased with her and himself as well. A good many of his friends, several newspaper critics, and others who had a financial interest in the Pall Mall, felicitated him in the foyer on his discernment in recognizing talent among the members of his chorus and incidentally from among the choruses of lesser managers upon whose folds he and his emissaries were always watching and making raids. He went round to the wings to congratulate Alexandra.

"I've only one fault to find," he said. "You coughed twice."

"I've had a cold for some time," was her excuse.

"You ought to take something. See a doctor."

"I will, if it doesn't get better."

"That's right."

Alexandra had on the white wrap which all ladies of the company were expected to wear over their costumes when not on the stage. He drew it slightly aside, exposing her neck.

"Damn fine diamonds, those, my dear. They ought to keep colds away."

He nodded amiably and moved off. Maggy, minus her wrap, rushing toward Alexandra, collided with him.

"Where's your dust-cloak?" he demanded.

"Oh, who can think of dust-cloaks when they're excited!" she exclaimed, and flung her arms round Alexandra. "You were a go, Lexie!"

"That's the third time this week I've seen you without it," said De Freyne testily.

"One and six more for the share-holders. Oh, don't grumble, Mr. De Freyne, or else I shall kiss you, too. I don't know what I'm doing!"

She put her arm in Alexandra's and dragged her off to her dressing-room. De Freyne's eyes followed the former.

"Deep little devil, that," he observed to his stage-manager, who had been looking on. "Clever too."

"They're all devils," rejoined that experienced person, wearily. "But it's a change when they're clever. Talking of cleverness, her friend's worth watching. She's very raw material, but—"

"You mean young Delamere? Clever?"

"Clever as paint!"

XXXII

Maggy had a pleasant surprise in store for Woolf. She meant to spring it on him that night after supper; but before the opportunity arose for doing so she herself was to suffer anything but a pleasant one from him.

Although he was not in the habit of lavishing valuable presents on her she spent a good deal of her pocket money on him. He was not always grateful for these little attentions. He regarded her gifts as superfluous expressions of affection, especially as he paid for both. At one time and another she had given him a gold cigarette-case, pocket-books, silver pencils, photograph frames, smoking requisites. On one occasion, to his amusement, she had presented him with a crocheted pajama bag with his initials carried out in the design. This labor of love was the product of her period of convalescence.

But now, perhaps to clear her conscience of her innocent traffic with Chalfont, she had launched with extravagance on his account. It took the form of the gift of a diamond ring. She had paid for it with all her savings, and she hoped it was a good stone, because Woolf had the trait which the proverb warns us against: he liked to look a gift-horse in the mouth. She was on the point of making her presentation when he said:

"By the way, you're going to be a grass-widow for three weeks."

"Oh, Fred!" she exclaimed, her face falling.

"I've got to go abroad."

"Where?"

"South of France."

"When?"

"To-morrow."

That he should leave her at all was utterly unexpected: the immediateness of his departure was so overwhelming. She sat for a while in startled silence. Suddenly she got up and threw her arms round him.

"Oh, Fred, take me with you," she coaxed. "It's summer there, isn't it? I've never been abroad."

Woolf avoided her eyes.

"And I've not been well. It would do me good. I'd love to travel with you, Fred. I'd have some new trunks with your initials on them, and I'd look so married and good. Really!"

"Not possible, my dear," said Woolf. "De Freyne wouldn't let you off."

"Yes, he would. He did before. You arranged that, so you can again."

"I'll take you abroad some day," he temporized. "I really can't this time, Maggy. I shall be traveling from place to place. I've arranged dates with a man, and I can't put him off. It's business. Don't plague me about it."

She saw it was no use arguing with him.

"I suppose I may write? What are the places?" she inquired disconsolately.

"Nice, Mentone, Cannes. Nice to start with at any rate. I'm not quite sure of my movements, but I'll let you know. You'd better address me Poste Restante."

"Honeymoon places!" There was a note of longing in her voice. "Well, I suppose I've had mine." She thought of the ring, forgot her chagrin and went on mischievously: "As you're going on your honeymoon I may as well give you your wedding present. Here it is."

She put it in his hand and hung back to watch the effect it should have on him. He looked pleased, but to her surprise seemed reluctant to accept it. She broke in on his muttered excuses.

"Tommy rot! I saw by your face that you liked it. Hold out your finger." She kissed the ring and also kissed his finger. "How does it go? ... With this ring I thee wed, with this body I thee worship.... There now. It's on. We're as good as—no, worse than married! Kiss me, you dear King. I don't mind your going so very much so long as you'll be glad to come back." Her lips quivered. "We've never been parted before."

"What's three weeks?" said Woolf lightly.

"I shall be a gray-haired old woman by the time you come back."

"Good Heavens! You're crying!"

"No, I'm not," she denied, hiding her face.

"Silly Maggy." He took her in his arms. "Cry afterwards. I'm not gone yet."

XXXIII

"I've brought them back."

Maggy had come to restore the borrowed jewels to Chalfont. It was late afternoon of the following day. She was dressed in gray with touches of black, and her face wore a subdued expression. Woolf had left for the Continent by the morning boat train.

"You were a brick to lend them," she proceeded. "Didn't you think Lexie was awfully good?"

"Very good indeed," he said.

"She isn't a bit excited. Funny, isn't it? She used to be so keen once. Now I don't think she'd mind a bit if she left the stage."

"Would you?"

"I? I can't imagine myself anywhere else. This time twenty years, if Maggy Delamere's still alive, she'll be capering about in the chorus somewhere, I expect. I hope I shall be dead though," she added pessimistically.

"What is the matter with you to-day?" asked Chalfont.

"Blue devils. Mr. Woolf's away. He won't be back for three weeks. He's on his honeymoon."

Chalfont stared at her. For a moment he thought she was speaking seriously. He could not understand her calm acceptance of such a fact. Then Maggy laughed.

"He's gone to honeymoon places, I mean. On business. He couldn't take me." She changed the subject quickly. "Have you ever been to see Lexie?"

"No," he replied. "I wasn't sure she would like me to."

"Perhaps she wouldn't. It's not much of a place where she lives."

"But I want you to give her a message, if you will."

"Of course. What is it?"

"An invitation. It's for you too, if you will accept it. But perhaps you've made arrangements already—for Christmas, I mean."

Maggy shook her head. Her Christmas would have to be spent alone in her flat. It did not occur to her that Chalfont was making her an alternative proposition.

"In that case I shall be very glad if you and Miss Hersey will spend it with me at Purton Towers."

Maggy started. Lexie and she and he all together at Christmas time! At Purton Towers!

"Is that your country-house?" she faltered.

"Yes. You'll come? We should be rather quiet because—"

"Because of poor Mrs. Lambert," she interjected with quick understanding. "Was—was she there with you last year?"

"No, she would never come."

Maggy was thinking.

"I expect Lexie would love to go," she cogitated. "And so should I. But I ought to stop at the flat.... Would it be very wrong if I didn't? He—Fred—is very strict about me. I wish I'd asked him...."

Chalfont did not attempt persuasion.

"All right," she said suddenly. "I'll come. It would be a shame to prevent Lexie having a good time. She wouldn't come without me. It will be simply lovely!"

"I'll motor you both down on Christmas Eve and bring you back in time for the theater on Boxing night. I think you'll like the old place."

"Shall I? What makes you think so?"

"For one thing because of the cedars on the lawn."

"Like in my dream? Oh, ripping!"

"And there is the home-farm. You like animals."

Maggy's face lighted up. "Will there be lambs and calves and fat squealy little pigs?"

"Hardly at this time of year," answered Chalfont, amused. "You'll have to come in the spring again to see them."

"I don't think I could resist it, if you invited us. May I ask you something?"

"Anything you like. Fire away."

"It's this," she said with considerable hesitation. "I would love to spend a real Christmas Day. Would you mind? One goes to church, doesn't one? And I would like people not to know we were actresses. I would like—if you could manage it—to have a Christmas tree. Couldn't you ask some village children—a lot of them? Children are always in season even when lambs and calves aren't. That's one blessing."

"I think that could be managed. Do you like children?" he asked, surprised at her earnestness.

"Like them? It's the one part of Heaven that sounds most attractive. You know where it says in the Bible: 'Suffer little children ... and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven,' and then a lot more toward the end about gold and jasper and glassy seas and streets of gold. I expect there must be a nursery for the children who died young. I'd like to squeeze in with the little angels!"

"You funny child!"

"I'm not a child. It's only my silly way of talking. I'm a woman. Why, this"—she held up her little finger—"this knows more about love and pain and everything else than—Lexie's whole body. Now I must be off. I do talk to you. What makes me? I only meant to stop a minute." She was wrought up at the prospect of spending Christmas—a real country Christmas—under such delightful conditions as she had outlined and Chalfont had tacitly acquiesced in. Too impatient to wait until evening to impart the joyful news to Alexandra she made for Sidey Street as fast as a taxicab could take her. There, breathlessly she told her news.

"How nice of him!" declared Alexandra. "Did you meet him accidentally, or how?"

"How," answered Maggy, and colored violently under Alexandra's clear and searching eyes. "I had to go to his house—on business," she floundered, giving herself away.

Alexandra could not help laughing.

"Oh, Maggy! Then the diamonds I wore last night were his!"

"Nothing wrong with them, was there?"

"No, but—but you must be very friendly with him. Have you seen him a lot since he came back?"

"When I went to borrow them and again to-day when I took them back," replied Maggy, regaining her self-possession.

"I wonder what he thinks of you!"

"Oh, just mad," said Maggy.

In a week's time it would be Christmas. The joys of anticipation helped her to endure Woolf's absence. She knew that her visit to Purton Towers would incense him, but she did not intend going it on that account. She would not be doing Woolf or herself any wrong in going. When he returned she would be quite honest and tell him all about it. Meanwhile she wrote to Chalfont.

"Dear Lord Chalfont:

"Lexie will love to come. Me too. But would you mind very much if I brought Mrs. Slightly and Mr. Onions?

"Yours sincerely,

"MAGGY DELAMERE."

Her large and sprawly handwriting covered the sheet. Had it not been for the afterthought in the form of a postscript which she added overleaf, Chalfont might have remained in ignorance of the identity of the two additional guests. It ran thus:

"I forgot you don't know them. Mrs. Slightly could sleep anywhere, being a cat. Mr. Onions is my dog and has a basket in my room. At any other time of the year I would not mind leaving them in charge of the porter at the flats but at Christmas everybody loses their heads and they might not get fed. They are not well bred but they have good manners."

Chalfont did not mind in the least. If Maggy had wanted in addition to bring a tame goat he would have welcomed it. All her eccentricities amused him. Her solicitude for her two pets showed her thoughtfulness and goodness of heart. So, when the day arrived, Mrs. Slightly traveled to Purton Towers in a well-ventilated hat box, while Onions, wildly excited but restrained by a brand-new leather leash, sat between Maggy and Alexandra in the back of the car.

It was a brilliant day, one of those sunny, windless days that belies the time of year. The air was crisp rather than cold, and the two girls, wrapped in their furs and a capacious rug, reveled in the swift rush of the open car infinitely more than if they had been driving in a closed one. Maggy was in prodigious spirits. Chalfont, driving with his man beside him, turned occasionally to watch her, regretting that he was unable to catch a word of her animated talk.

"Isn't life a funny thing, Onions dear," she was bubbling rather than saying. "Six months ago you were a gagaboo little horror eating your namesakes out of a dustbin, and here you are being driven by a real live lord. The beauty of it is you don't know it and wouldn't care if you did. That's one of the reasons why I love you, Onions. You don't mind me being an abandoned female. You don't even know that I am one. That's why King Edward was so fond of his Cæsar. Cæsar didn't love him because he was a king but because he was a man. He might have been a coal-heaver for all Cæsar cared. You little wog-wogs don't know anything about titles or the marriage service, but you can love, honor and obey better than we can, till death makes us howl and bury you."

Onions, straining at his lead, leapt up and tried to snatch a mouthful of her motor-veil.

"Onions, if I were rich I would try to make a heaven on earth for all the doggies in the world. I'd look for all the hungry ones and all the ugly ones and the beaten ones and the ones whose mothers sat on them and made them funny shapes. You should all have lovely patent kennels full of the best quality straw—heaps of it to wiggle around in; and exciting food, bones and the horrible things from insides that you like so much, and sulphur when you weren't looking, to keep you well and make your coats shine. And you should all run about wherever you pleased, chasing bunny-rabbits and mice and the other sniffy things that make dogs so excited. And there should be a special place all wired round for the slow doggies, all full of rabbits so that they couldn't get away. It wouldn't be cruel, because after a time you'd make friends with the bunnies and play hide and seek with them. Oh, what a lovely world we could make it if we had it all to ourselves. Lexie, do look at Onion's face. He's laughing!"

Alexandra laughed too.

"How you do lose your head and your heart to anything you love, Maggy," she said.

Maggy gave her one of her odd looks.

"Isn't it a way women have?" she retorted.

XXXIV

The room, of regal dimensions, was paneled in linenfold, and hung with old tapestry. Giant specimens of William and Mary furniture did not crowd it; nor did the big canopied four-poster on its dais much curtail the floor-space. In the wide, open fireplace logs glowed warmly. A dozen candles shed a soft light on Alexandra as she sat in a tall carved armchair by the hearth, plaiting her hair. Maggy on the bed in her nightgown with her hands clasped round her knees was lost in the shadow of its brocaded curtains.

"Pinch me, Lexie, or I shall believe it's all a dream and wake up," she said. "Fancy, a king slept here once. I wonder what he'd have said if he'd been told that hundreds of years afterwards a chorus girl was coming into his bed—" A shy gurgle brought her to a stop as she realized the doubtful meaning she had given to the last part of the sentence. "Lexie, how quiet you are."

"I'm reveling in it too," said Alexandra with a contented sigh.

"Oh, you're a lady by birth. It's natural to you."

"Indeed it isn't. I've never been in such a lovely place in my life."

"Footmen with powdered legs!" mused Maggy absently.

Alexandra laughed softly.

"Hair, I mean. Same thing.... And the dinner served like machinery and yet so quietly. None of the waiters—servants—in a hurry, and everything so natural and perfect. I thought I should feel like walking on new-laid eggs, but I didn't at all. Oh, if you lived in a place like this all your life you couldn't help growing noble and behaving beautifully. I don't feel properly vulgar here."

"But you're not vulgar."

"Well, perhaps not properly.... Isn't Mrs. Pardiston a dear? She's 'the Honorable,' isn't she? I think 'the Honorable' sounds more splendid than 'Lady' or even 'Duchess.' 'Honorable!' It means so much. The others are tides, but 'the Honorable' is an—an—"

"Attribute?" supplied Alexandra.

"Yes, that's the word. Isn't it nice of him asking her—his own aunt—to meet us? Oh, Lord!"

"What's the matter?"

"I asked Lord Chalfont not to tell any one we were on the stage. Mrs. Pardiston can't know. She ought to. She's been so sweet to me. Perhaps she wouldn't have been if she'd known. I think I ought to tell her before I go to sleep."

"Why not wait till the morning?" suggested Alexandra.

"I'm sure to forget in the morning. I'm going to get up at seven to see the cows milked. You mustn't, Lexie, because you've got a cold. And then there'll be church, and after that the Christmas tree to do things to, and—I shan't remember I'm on the stage to-morrow. Oh, are you going?"

"My dear, it's past twelve." Alexandra's bedroom was opposite Maggy's. "I wish we had been together," she said.

"So do I. But I suppose in the state of life unto which it has pleased God to call the aristocracy they never do sleep together. Good night, darling."

Left alone, Maggy remained as she was, hugging her knees and thinking. The soft, warm silence wrapped her round. Her excited mind was full of the eventful day: the long motor run ending with her first close acquaintance with a noble old edifice such as she had only previously seen in pictures and photographs. Her first view of it had made her feel as if she could have knelt down and worshiped it. It was all so grand and so very, very good. Her tiny flat, which had hitherto seemed such a palace in her eyes, receded to its proper unimposing proportions. She saw the insignificance of her little white "bedroom suite" beside the stately furniture that surrounded her. She thought of the dignity, the age and the atmosphere of peace into which, as on a magic carpet, she had been suddenly transported, and compared it with the fret and turmoil and passion of her own life. She had been timorous at first of Mrs. Pardiston with her air of high breeding, and then fallen completely under the spell of her charm. It had shown itself so gently maternal toward her and Alexandra, so unquestioning.

But Mrs. Pardiston probably assumed her to be a lady. It seemed absurd, in spite of her having striven hard to appear as to the manner born. Indeed, she had succeeded in behaving charmingly. Only her modesty prevented her being assured of it. Even supposing she had satisfied Lord Chalfont's aunt in that respect, she still felt she was imposing on the dear old lady by not having disclosed her want of social standing. With that doubt on her mind she got into bed, the enormous bed that enveloped her like a warm, embracing sea. It kept her awake. Not more than an hour since, Mrs. Pardiston bidding her good-night had said, "Come to me if you want anything, my dears. You know where my room is."

Recollection of those words sent her flying out of bed. She felt she must go and make confession. Out in the wide corridor she was directed by a stream of light that came from under her hostess's door. She knocked at it ever so gently, and was bidden to enter. She opened it and stood on the threshhold, hesitating.

Mrs. Pardiston was sitting up in bed, reading. Maggy's subsequent impression of her was always that of a white-haired Madonna crowned with folds of soft lace.

"May I come in? Am—am I disturbing you?" she asked timidly.

"No, my dear. I never get to sleep for hours. But what is it?"

Maggy closed the door. Barefooted, in her nightgown, with her hair ruffled, she looked and felt like a child caught in some reprehensible act.

"I didn't know whether you knew we—I—I'm a chorus-girl," she stammered.

Mrs. Pardiston shut her book. She had been reading the story of the birth of Jesus. That lonely vigil of Mary and her outcast Son, the friendlessness and loneliness of it, had its special appeal on this the dawn of its anniversary. Her heart was touched. For some unknown reason also it went out to the girl so wistfully standing by her bed.

"Are you, dear?" she said tenderly. "Wrap yourself in the eider-down and tell me all about it."

Tell her all about it! Maggy was quite unprepared for the calm and friendly overture.

"Would you mind if I didn't?" she faltered. "It would take so long. I dance and sing for my living, that's all. There's nothing interesting about it. But I thought you ought to know, else you might have—"

Mrs. Pardiston smiled reassuringly.

"I should never think ill of a person because they worked for their living. It was nice of you to want to trust me."

"I did. You've been so kind.... But I'm interrupting you. You were reading."

"You can read to me, if you will." Mrs. Pardiston took off her spectacles and handed Maggy the book, indicating the place. "Are you quite warm? But perhaps you would rather go to bed?"

"I'll read a little first, please."

Not till then did Maggy observe that the book she held was the Bible. A solemn look came into her face. Her voice was a little unsteady as she began to read.

"'Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

"'Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him....'"

Chalfont, passing the room on his way to bed, heard Maggy's voice, and paused to listen.

XXXV

To get up of a winter's morning to see his cows milked was not a usual diversion with Chalfont, but to please Maggy he turned out at seven and took her to the home farm to witness that process. She was absorbed by it. She had never before been nearer to a cow than the average hedge permits of; and to see them, as she did now, in the family circle, so to speak, was a delightful novelty to her. Her love of animals was very real. She went into raptures over Chalfont's velvety-nosed prize Jerseys.

In her hurry to get up she had neglected to use any of the creams and unguents which she deemed necessary for the adornment of her face. It had been too dark for Chalfont to notice this omission at first, but on their way back he became aware of it, and also of the flawlessness of her complexion. Without stopping to think, he said:

"What have you done to yourself?"

"You mean, what have I not done?" she laughed. "I've forgotten my face. Left it out."

He was on the point of apologizing for his blunder, but said instead: "I like you much better as you are."

"That's what Lexie's always saying. But it's habit. When a girl makes-up year in and year out she feels undressed without it. Savages have that feeling, I suppose," she added comically. "I haven't wished you a happy Christmas yet. I do hope you will be very happy—later on."

"Thank you. And I hope you will be happy always."

"I'm happy now, at any rate. I believe this is going to be the most heavenly day of my life. I feel it in my bones."

A few moments later she burst into Alexandra's bedroom.

"Oh, Lexie dear, happy Christmas! I've been saying it to the cows and the horses and the lodge-keeper's children ever since seven. Give me a hug. I haven't got your Christmas present with me, because it's an eider-down quilt. You'll find it on your bed when you get back. Don't let's think of getting back though. It's so perfect here. What time will church be? I suppose I mustn't take Onions to church? He chased the fowls all over the farmyard this morning. Lord Chalfont says I can leave him here if I like. It would be nice for Onions, but not for the fowls. There's a bell! It must be for breakfast. Come along; I'm famished."

Church followed on the heels of breakfast. Maggy had never been to a Christmas service before. She was tremendously impressed by it. The maternal instinct, always very strong in her, tugged at her heart strings. Once, as she knelt, Alexandra noticed that she was quietly crying. So did Chalfont.

Mrs. Pardiston and Alexandra stopped for Communion. Leaving the motor for them, the other two walked back. Maggy was very quiet. With the latent understanding that made Chalfont attune himself to her mood he too refrained from speech. Presently she burst out:

"Why does the world only appreciate people after they're dead? What is the good of birthdays when you're not alive? That poor little baby! If He came down from Heaven again they'd let Him be born in a manger just the same. Only children ought to go to church on Christmas day. They're good enough. We're not. Do you know, I wondered I wasn't struck dumb for being anywhere near to God. God was in church this morning. I felt Him. I'm not religious, but I believe in God now. Oh, I wish I was good, like Lexie. I wish I didn't know what love is. I wish I'd never been wicked!"

She was wrought-up. She had forgotten the necessity for reticence. Her confession had to come. The restraint of sex was forgotten. If she thought of Chalfont at all at that moment, it was as a brother rather than a man.

"Hush," he said. "You're not wicked."

"I am, I am," she reiterated. "I ought to have had a baby.... People must have thought the usual things of Mary because of hers.... But she had Him."

"You poor little woman," he said unsteadily.

That he should express compassion where most men would have shown despisement filled her with almost dog-like gratitude.

"I do like you," she said with sudden vehemence. "If I had been dear Mrs. Lambert I would have loved you."

"Thank you," he said very seriously.

Like a passing cloud, the strange emotional mood soon left her. Her volatile spirits rose again. By the time she had taken Onions for a scamper in the grounds she was quite her old self. Chalfont, watching her flitting here and there, thought only of her rapturous enjoyment of innocent pleasures, and succeeded for a little while in forgetting that such a person as Woolf with his sullying associations was in existence.

The day passed with dream-like swiftness for the two girls. They snatched at its fleeting pleasures according to their temperaments. To Alexandra it was a delightful break in a life which she was beginning to loathe, one for which she could not be too grateful. Its very evanescence caused her to enjoy it with temperate zest. Maggy's livelier feelings made her grasp at all it brought forth with both hands. To her it was a glimpse into fairyland, or at least a world in which she classed herself a complete outsider.

Chalfont had not forgotten her desire for a Christmas tree and the presence of children to enjoy it. All the youngsters on the estate had been bidden to the treat. There were small boys, rosy of cheek, in their best; small girls, eager-eyed, in the whitest of pinafores. Maggy, at Mrs. Pardiston's request, presided over the feast arranged for them. She it was who afterwards distributed the gifts from the loaded Christmas tree. Within five minutes the children were under her spell; in ten she seemed to know all their names and a great deal about each of them. When at last the tree was stripped of all but its candles she started games and joined in them. She romped. She was a child among children.

When they had all gone, Chalfont suggested that before dressing for dinner the two girls should inspect the picture-gallery, which they had not yet seen, and as soon as it was lighted up he led the way there. Maggy's interest at once centered in the many portraits that lined the walls. The landscapes and genre pictures that interspersed them she passed by. Individualities only concerned her, and to these, in the canvasses of dead and gone Chalfonts she gave a rapt attention, stopping at each that appealed to her and asking for its history. One portrait in particular, that of a very beautiful girl, she looked at for a long time.

"Who was she?" she inquired.

"My grandmother," replied Chalfont. "It was painted just after her marriage. She was only nineteen when she died, a year later."

"Oh, what a pity! Why?"

Chalfont passed to the next portrait.

"Her son," he said. "My father."

Maggy understood. She glanced back sadly at the youthful face of the mother.

Chalfonts in armor, in uniform, in silk and velvet and in lace, confronted her everywhere. She flitted from one to the other, admiring, impressed.

"How proud of them all you must be," she said finally. "Fancy having—ancestors!"

As she spoke she paused before the portrait of a woman, perceiving in it something different from the rest. The face was handsome, yet lacked a high-bred look.

"Another ancestress," said Chalfont. "An actress, a contemporary of Mrs. Siddons."

"How did she come here?" wondered Maggy, almost jealous for the honor of his house.

"She married the fourth Viscount."

"Married him!" She stared at the painted lady. "It was a mistake," she said, as though to herself, and in so odd a tone that the others laughed.

When Chalfont set the two girls down at the stage-door on Boxing night Maggy pressed a note into his hand. He read it at his club, where he went to dine before returning to the theater.

"'Thank you very much' sounds so beastly ordinary in words, so I must write it, because I want you to know that I am ever so grateful for the way you have treated me. It's proper for a darling saint like Lexie to be asked to stay at Purton Towers. But me—that's another thing. I shall get into hot water with Mr. Woolf for coming, and I don't suppose he'll allow it again if you ask me, or even let me see you. But don't ever think that I can forget your kindness. Although you know what I am you have had me down to your beautiful home, with your sweet honorable aunt just as if I wasn't a common girl, which I am. The only thing I can say is that perhaps if I had been properly brought up and had a name to be proud of I shouldn't have dragged it in the mud like I have my own silly name which can't belong to me because it's the classy kind actresses make up. Don't laugh. I'm not often serious, but I do say God bless you and I mean it.

"MAGGY."

The overture was coming to an end when Chalfont took his seat in the stalls. As the curtain swished up his eyes went to Maggy, scantily clad in diaphanous chiffon. He was thinking of the golden heart of the girl, not at all of her compulsorily over-exposed beauty.

But Maggy was blushing beneath her grease paint. A sudden access of modesty had come over her. It was as baffling to herself as was the remark she flung to the girl dancing beside her—one, two, three and a kick.

"What wouldn't I give for a blanket!"

XXXVI

One evening, a few days after Christmas, De Freyne waylaid Alexandra as she was coming from her dressing-room.

"Your cough doesn't seem to go," he said. "People in the stalls don't want to be reminded of graveyards. It's rather suggestive. You ought to see a doctor."

"I'll find out who my panel doctor is," she said.

"I should prefer you to go to Bernard Meer. Son of the late Sir Morton Meer, you know. Like his father, he's a throat specialist, and not given to charging fees to members of the profession. Say you're at the Pall Mall and mention my name when you see him."

She was reluctant to do as De Freyne wished, but he was insistent, and she promised to call at the Wimpole Street address which he gave her. It seemed rather absurd to go to a specialist for a bottle of cough mixture. She took her slight throat affection as a matter-of-course, a cold induced by the draughts on the stage and the change of temperature to which she was exposed after leaving the theater at night.

When, therefore, she presented herself next morning in Wimpole Street she was in a very apologetic frame of mind. A full waiting-room, testifying to the doctor's importance, did not help to restore her confidence. She was the last to arrive and had a long time to wait. When her turn came to enter the consulting room she was more nervous than she had been when making her first appearance on the stage. She had pictured Dr. Meer as an elderly man, and her discomfiture was all the greater when she found him to be a young one, not over thirty. It may have been prudish—in some respects she was apt to suffer from excess of delicacy—but she had a maidenly dread of the physical examination which she knew she would have to undergo. Hardly had the door closed behind her when she felt that the specialist's keen gray eyes had X-rayed through her sable coat and made a mental photograph of her slightly protruding collarbones.

Schooled to read faces, he saw how nervous she was and wondered at it. Nervousness in De Freyne's young ladies was something of an anachronism.

"Well, what's wrong?" he asked cheerfully.

"Only a cold," she replied. "It seems ridiculous to bother you."

He smiled. For so young a man and an unmarried one his manner was reassuringly paternal. It was not artificial pretentiousness, but genuine and natural to him.

"You ought not to be in the habit of catching cold in such a gorgeous fur coat. We'll have it off, please."

Bereft of the garment, her fragility was evident enough. Bernard Meer admired slight women; but this girl's physique struck him as too delicate for stage-work. He thought, too, that he detected signs of privation in her face. Why that should be when apparently she could afford to dress so expensively was a puzzle to him. He sounded her carefully.

"There's nothing much the matter, is there?" she asked, when he had done.

"Not at present. But you're too thin. You want looking after, coddling. Are you very keen on the stage?"

"I don't find it altogether alluring," she made answer a little reluctantly; "but I can't afford to give it up."

"That isn't absolutely necessary. Only—well, the luxuries that the average woman can easily do without are essential to you. Get the person who gave you those furs to treat you to a few guinea jars of turtle soup and—"

Alexandra's flaming face made him stop.

"The lady who gave them to me is dead," she said quietly.

A little while ago she would have resented Meer's words as an intentional insult. Now she knew that her connection with the stage had suggested them to him. Probably he meant nothing offensive. As a matter of fact he did not. Still, for some reason which she could not define, she felt hurt that he should have thought it necessary to convey what he did.

She felt, too, that his scrutiny was not entirely that of the physician. She sensed the man in it. Had she also been aware that he was admiring her—a circumstance of which his impassive face gave no indication—and that he was pleasantly surprised to find her free from a weakness common to the general run of De Freyne's beauties, her perturbation would have been greater than it was.

"The trouble with you," he said with friendly intent, "is mainly want of proper nourishment. Please forgive the question, but—are you hard up?"

"No, not at present. At least, not very. I was rather, before I went back to the Pall Mall."

"Back? You were there before?"

"Yes."

He seemed to be thinking.

"Are you in the chorus?"

"I used to be. Now I have a small part."

"But not much in the way of salary?"

"Thirty-five shillings a week. But I have forty pounds a year of my own besides. I should be quite reasonably well off if it were not for the many little things I have to find for the theater. I ought not to complain. There are thousands of girls far worse off than I am."

"And you live—where?"

He made a note of the address.

"Your appetite?" was the next question. "For instance, what did you have for breakfast this morning?"

"Tea, and bread and butter ... and there was an egg."

"The usual sort of egg?" he augmented cynically.

"A little more than usual," she replied with a faint smile.

"I see. And I suppose you will have lunch at a bunshop?"

"Yes. Please don't look so prejudiced. Some bunshops are quite satisfying places. One sees plenty of men there as well as women."

"That's so. Anæmic clerks who should be eating a good midday meal to make up for an indifferent supper at night, and girls who need meat contenting themselves with coffee and a roll, or perhaps pastry! Now I'm going to write you a prescription. Mind you get it made up and take it. Let me see you again three days from now. If you don't come I shall visit you. Seriously, you need to take care of yourself."

He stopped the protest that rose to her lips, gave her the prescription, and, again impressing on her the necessity of coming to report progress, let her go. Why he, who had never previously felt any hankering after an actress, should want to see more of a stray girl, and one of De Freyne's at that, was more than he could explain to himself.

Alexandra kept the appointment and several others after it. Her first shyness vanished. Meer disguised his personal interest in her because he wanted to benefit her professionally. Not until he had practically cured her throat trouble did he give her any indication of his real feelings.

"I think you'll be all right now if you take care of yourself," he told her one morning.

"I've given you a lot of trouble," she rejoined gratefully.

She placed two guineas on a side table. He picked up the coins and handed them back to her.

"Certainly not."

"But—please? You can't do it for nothing."

"I haven't done it for nothing. If you want to recompense me, you can quite easily. I should be honored if you will lunch with me. Will you?"

"But," she hesitated, "I don't go out to lunch with anybody—ever."

"That's why I said I should be honored if you would. Come, we're quite friends. I've seen you four times for ten minutes!"

She wanted to accept. After all, as she had expressed it to Maggy when Woolf had asked her out, there was no harm in lunching with a man. She was reminded of that opinion, now that it applied to herself. She wanted to accept Meer's invitation, but was held back by a suspicion of what these lunches, suppers and dinners were meant to lead to. Men seemed to think that a girl on the stage could be bought for the price of a dinner! And then, in her indecision, she looked at Meer, saw the friendly eagerness in his face, and let reason give way to inclination.

"I don't want to refuse," she said.

Five minutes later they were on their way to the Carlton. Meer would have preferred enjoying her society in a less popular place, but there was a matinée that day and the Pall Mall was so close to the great restaurant.

When Alexandra knew where they were bound for diffidence seized on her. Maggy might be there. If she were, and saw her with a man, what would she think? Alexandra felt that there could be no two answers to that question. She entered the big, rose-colored room in fear and trembling.

Maggy, however, was not lunching at the Carlton that day. But Lander, the composer of Alexandra's new song, saw her and carried the news to De Freyne.

"Who do you think was lunching with Bernard Meer at the Carlton to-day?" he began.

"No woman," answered De Freyne. "He hates 'em. Thinks they've got fluff in their heads instead of brains, and that's why they're so light-headed. Told me so himself."

"It was a woman for all that. Nobody less than little Hersey! And, by Jove, it was quite fascinating to watch her. At first she hardly spoke a word; but before long she might have been alone with him in the restaurant. She seemed to have clean forgotten everybody else in the place. And he was just as taken up with her. They couldn't take their eyes off one another. Wonder what it means?"

"Oh, nothing. You've got hold of the wrong end of the stick, my dear chap. Why, she only met the fellow a fortnight ago. I sent her to him. Meer wouldn't look at one of my lot, except professionally."

However, when he saw Alexandra that evening he chaffed her.

"I hear you were lunching with Meer to-day," he said. "Was that part of his prescription?" Something in her face so entirely pure and at the same time so piteous, made him refrain from saying more. He had once seen much the same expression in his own daughter's face when she had shyly told him that some one had proposed to her and was coming for his consent. "Damn it all," he reflected. "She's going to fall in love like any ordinary girl!" Aloud he said, "Meer isn't a marrying sort, you know."

Alexandra bent her head as she passed him.

Bernard Meer was in the stalls that night. She saw him looking at her. Once he smiled, and, trembling, she smiled back, and despised herself for smiling, since now like nearly all the others she had "a friend" in the house.

XXXVII

Prince's was filling up for supper. The diapason of many voices, the tinkle of silver and glass, merged pleasantly with the music of the band; the sound was like a pæan of praise to Amphitryon.

Maggy and Woolf occupied a table at the end of the room opposite the balcony. The latter had been back about ten days, and Maggy was happy again. She lived so entirely in the present that she had actually and honestly forgotten to tell him about her visit to Purton Towers. Of Chalfont she had seen nothing more. Woolf so filled her thoughts that, for once, she was even out of touch with Alexandra. A minute or two at night between entrances and exits was all they were able to give to one another. Then Maggy's one subject was "her Fred," and Alexandra's reserve kept her silent about Bernard Meer.

"Look over there," said Woolf rather suddenly. His straying eyes, ever in search of youth and beauty, had lit on a face he knew.

"Where?" asked Maggy, gazing about at random.

"On your left. Four tables away."

Maggy gave a start of astonishment when at last she discerned Alexandra with a man, a highly-presentable man, rather stern of face, good-looking and comparatively young. Her Lexie with a man! She stared, tongue-tied.

"See her?" asked Woolf, and broke the spell of silence that held her.

Maggy in her excitement half rose from her chair and called a greeting to Alexandra. Until then, the latter, though fully prepared to see Maggy in such a place, had been unaware of her presence. At the sound of her voice she looked up, nodded and smiled. Meer, turning to see who had attracted her attention, gave Maggy a glance full of interest. It was evident to him that she and Alexandra were something more than mere acquaintances.

"What a striking-looking girl," he said. "Who is she?"

"Her name is Maggy Delamere," replied Alexandra. "We used to live together at Sidey Street."

"And now?"

"She has a flat," she said with a little constraint.

"Is she on the stage?"

"Yes. At the Pall Mall. Haven't you noticed her? She's in the front row."

"I didn't know De Freyne had any married women in his chorus," said Meer thoughtfully.

"But Maggy isn't married," began Alexandra, and then stopped in confusion, suspecting that he must have seen the conspicuously broad wedding ring on Maggy's left hand, just as she herself could see it. She crumbled her bread nervously.

"Are you in favor of that sort of thing?" Meer asked abruptly, showing that he had been following her line of thought.

"It's very usual—on the stage," she answered evasively.

"You don't condemn it."

"I don't condemn my friend, if that's what you mean."

"But do you condone it?" he persisted.

"Oh, how can I tell you? It's a question of what one feels individually," she countered desperately. "With a woman it doesn't necessarily mean that she has chosen that way.... Sometimes she has no alternative."

"You mean that your friend would rather be married?"

"Much rather."

After a pause he said: "Then what is your opinion of a man who only offers a woman love without marriage?"

"Not a very high one. I couldn't respect him," she replied, greatly embarrassed. "It seems such an unfair advantage to take of a girl who has more than enough of unfair things to contend with already. I—I would rather not talk about it, if you don't mind."

It seemed to her that he was deliberately sounding her code of morality before making the proposition which she felt was imminent if she continued to see him. She could no longer disguise from herself that he wanted her, and that her own instinct was not one of flight. Had she met him before she had gone on the stage she would have estimated his feelings toward her correctly, seen that he was honorably attracted to her. But her recent experiences had distorted her views about courtship. Her heart would have beaten to a different tune had she known that his motive in questioning her about Maggy was merely to ascertain her opinion on a matter which, owing to her connection with the stage, must be familiar to her. After her expressed desire to avoid it he let it drop, and turned to another, more vital to himself and her, on which he had made up his mind to speak to her that evening.

"How long must you and I go on like this?" he asked in an undertone, full of suppressed feeling.

Her heart thumped in her throat so that she could not answer.

"I mean," he said, "that it's not very satisfying seeing you so occasionally. It's true we haven't known one another very long as time goes, but it has been long enough for me to realize my own feelings. I want you. Those three words mean everything that a man can say to a woman. What is your answer?"

The surge of feeling, the thrill she experienced as he said "I want you," left her in no doubt as to her own emotions. She not only loved, she loved without reservation, with a magnitude so huge that it seemed as though a transport of yearning were being pumped into her by some external Titanic force. And it came from him, the man facing, close to her. She heard the clarion cry of sex for the first time in a crowded restaurant, where she could not even cover her face with her hands and so hide her besieged virginity from the sight of men. She could only sit still and feel her shame creeping into her face. Maggy, glancing her way every now and then, saw the agitation that was moving her and thought she was going to faint.

"Lexie's ill!" she whispered anxiously, and was about to get up and go to her.

Woolf's hand detained her. He had been watching Meer, and also seen Alexandra's face.

"Sit still," he commanded.

"But she's going to faint!"

"Not she!"

"Then—what's the matter with her?"

"Can't you see?" he chuckled.

Maggy gasped. Lexie, of all people—at last! It was as if she saw a huge warm wave gathering, gaining speed, advancing on the game little swimmer and bearing her off captive.

XXXVIII

Alexandra sat on the edge of her bed. In the little room with the cistern the temperature was bitterly cold, but she was insensible to it.

He had said wonderful things. He had said she was beautiful.... By the light of the candle she peered into the glass, trying to see her face as he had seen it. Perhaps it was the effect of the two great plaits of dark hair that hung framing it, or of a certain new softness in her eyes, of something knowledgeable that she had not seen there before, but she felt that she was looking at herself for the first time unveiled.

Her hands went to her nightgown, holding it to her; then, as involuntarily, they loosened.

Shyly, as though she were not alone, she gazed back at the dim reflection in the mirror and knew that girlhood was behind her, that she was no longer, as Kipling's little maid,

"A field unfilled, a web unwove,

A bud withheld from sun or bee,

An alien in the courts of Love,

And priestess of his shrine is she."

All rosy, she blew out the light.

XXXIX

Next morning Maggy was round at Sidey Street. She felt that confidences were in the air. If Alexandra was not dying to impart them she at least was "all of a twitter" to hear them.

"Lexie," she cried, bursting in, "don't have any secrets from me. Who is he?"

Alexandra was in the act of writing a letter. She looked up apathetically.

"You mean the man I was with last night?" she said. "I'm not going to see him any more, so we won't talk about him."

"Oh, yes, we will! Why, I do believe you're writing to him now!"

"You can read what I've written."

Thus invited, Maggy looked over her shoulder. Alexandra had begun a stilted little note to Bernard Meer in which she briefly refused to meet him any more.

"I don't think you'll post it," said Maggy shrewdly. "It doesn't ring true. Besides, what do you want to run away from him for? He looked just the sort of man one could trust, not a bit like the stage-door pest kind."

She cross-examined Alexandra, dragged from her the few bald details of her half-dozen meetings with Meer.

"Of course you're in love with him," she declared. "I saw it in your face. If I hadn't been so taken up with Fred I should have found out things before last night. Lexie, what's going to happen?"

The tone in which Maggy asked the question showed that she expected a particular answer, that she would be surprised if it were not the one which followed the line of least resistance. It set Alexandra wavering.

"Oh, Maggy," she said desperately, "if any one had told me a few months ago that I should ever have had to fight against that sort of temptation I should have died of shame! All last night I lay awake hating and despising myself, and all the time I was trying to find excuses for myself. I never thought love would come like this, taking one unawares, giving one no time to prepare for it. If I ever let myself think of it at all it was as of some fragrant and beautiful little plant that one could watch shoot and grow and bud—"

"Instead of that it's gone and done a kind of Mango trick like I saw at St. George's Hall once—sprouted up into a full-grown tree while you waited, or rather while you didn't wait. I daresay love might have come as you picture it, Lexie, if you'd stayed at home. Plants grow faster in a forcing-house; and the stage is, well—a hot-bed. If you're really in love you might as well try and get away from it as from an express train when it's bowled you over. After all, there's just a chance you won't get scrunched to pieces if you take it lying down."

For the hundredth time in the last twelve hours Alexandra found herself wondering whether she dared follow Maggy's example, and give herself to the man she loved. If she did, what would be the outcome of it? How long would such an affection, at least on the man's part, last? Always those old set views of hers about life and morality rose up to haunt her indecision. Was she, after all, to recant, give up the fight, own herself beaten?

"Poor old Lexie," murmured Maggy, taking her hand after a long silence.

"Maggy,"—Alexandra held her eyes questioningly—"tell me honestly: do you in any way regret what you did? You know why I want to know."

Maggy looked within herself.

"No," she answered thoughtfully, "I don't. I do admit there's one thing that spoils it, makes it different to being married. You often wonder at night, or first thing in the morning, sometimes even in daytime, whether it's one day nearer the end or how far off the end is. I'm prepared for Fred to get tired of me one day, though I hope it won't come for years and years. But so long as he's straight over it I'll meet him half way. I'll go to my own funeral, and not sniffle. It wouldn't be reasonable to refuse to take the consequences. You've got to choose for yourself. I believe it's the only way for us girls on the stage. With most of us marriage is an accident. Only go into it with your eyes open. Leave out the fairy-tale notion that 'they lived happily ever afterwards,' or at least half of it. Thank goodness for the 'happily,' and be satisfied with it."

"If only I could get right away," murmured Alexandra. "Here I feel hunted down. I sit and think and think and get weaker and weaker. And this room and the street simply shriek to me to leave them."

"I know all the symptoms, dear. They're new to you, but I've had them over and over again. The funny part is, Lexie, now it's come to the point I feel different about you. Although I was always telling you to climb over the garden wall to the little boy next door, now that you're half way up I'm afraid to give you a push. You might drop into something you didn't expect.... Oh, Lexie, pet, in my mind's eye I only see you dressed in white and orange blossoms. It's a damned shame you shouldn't have them.... And yet, if you don't, it may be worse later on, because you know as well as I do that you can't do any good on the stage all by yourself, and it's better to have the man you'd have married if you'd been given the chance than one you don't care a rap about except for what he can give you. It all sounds so muddley when I try and put things into words, but I know what I mean myself."

She stayed a little longer, but, after this, they both instinctively kept to the shallows of conversation, avoiding the depths. When she had gone, Alexandra, as Maggy had prophesied, tore up her letter. She took a fresh sheet and without hesitating wrote, "Just when you wish—Alexandra."

Then she went out and posted it, and, having betrayed herself, came home and wept bitterly.

XL

The crisis of surrender once passed Alexandra shed no more tears. Not that she ceased to feel. Indeed, her sensibilities were all on edge and remained so. But other feminine instincts soon asserted themselves. One was the blessed refuge of clothes. Tragedy notwithstanding, she must make herself presentable. She thought it would distract her. At first it did because she had to scheme to make the most of her dwindling store of wearing apparel. All that she was rich in were those outer garments bequeathed to her by Mrs. Lambert. For hours she adapted this and repaired that, improvising a pretense at a trousseau. That it was only pretense burnt itself into her brain. Every ribbon she threaded through slotted embroidery was not unlike a tug at her heart strings. All her things had been marked with her name in full by the hands of the loved mother who had put every stitch into them. Well, there would be no change of name. She tried not to think what the dead mother, who had treasured her and taught her to pray, would feel if she could know of the step her only daughter was about to take. And though God now seemed to have turned His face from her, or she hers from God, she thanked Him for the dead's sake that avowal of it could not be made. Her mood was one of thankfulness for small mercies. She no longer rebelled against the laxity of stage morals. She was going to conform to them. The stage had deadened her susceptibilities to right and wrong. She was of it. She had elected to go the way it pointed. She had let down the drawbridge of her maidenhood for the besieging host to walk over as an invited guest.

In the midst of her needlework and her bitter thoughts there came the sound of feet mounting the stairs. Mrs. Bell opened the door and announced "The doctor to see you, Miss Hersey," in a tone that clearly proclaimed that his visit provided her with a touch of the same kind of excitement which she derived from a funeral. Alexandra was on her feet by this time, painfully conscious of the litter of garments that lay around her. Coloring, she gathered them all up in a heap, and turned to face her lover. He stood still, impatiently waiting for Mrs. Bell to depart, and only spoke when the sound of her descending footsteps had died away. Then he took Alexandra in his arms and kissed her.

"I got your note a quarter of an hour ago," he said. "I couldn't wait. I want to know about this wretched stage business. How soon can you get out of it?"

The question took her aback. She could not understand why he should wish her to leave the stage. She assumed that her connection with it had been the spur to his desire of her.

"But—" she faltered, "do you want me to leave it?"

"Don't you want to?"

"I—I don't think I ought to, now that I've made a start—"

"But, my dear child," he interrupted, "you won't want to work for your living when you're my wife!"

She almost doubted the evidence of her ears.

"What did you say?" she managed to ask.

"I said: When you're my wife. What else could you be? You didn't propose to be a sister to me, did you? I'm impatient, dear. In your letter you wrote: 'Just when you wish.' Didn't you mean it?"

She hid her burning face on his shoulder as she thought of what she had meant. And all the while his one idea had been marriage! His wife! Wife! Surely no word ever spoken could be so full of hallowed significance! ... What would he think of her if he knew what she had really meant? Ought she to tell him? Maidenly modesty counseled reserve, to take what the gods had given her. But would that be honest? Maggy, in her position, would have blurted out the truth at once in her downright way: "Married and respectable! Oh, my dear, I didn't think you meant to include that in the program!" or some such easy phrase. But she was not Maggy, and words would not come. She heard Meer asking her how soon she could marry him; heard him outline a honeymoon in places that would cure her cough. And all the while she could say nothing. Meer, as happy as a schoolboy, was making an inspection of the room. Love lent a glamour to its cramped proportions and mean appurtenances. His eyes went to the small bed, resplendent now by reason of Maggy's eiderdown; an exasperating little bed nevertheless because it made nearly as many sleep-dispelling noises as the too obtrusive cistern.

"And that's where you sleep!" he said softly. The lacy pillow-case with her monogram on it, another of Maggy's gifts, lay uppermost. He bent and kissed it, then laughed diffidently and moved toward her. She shrank back a step, making a gesture with her hands that was almost supplicatory.

"There's something I must say. I owe it to you," she said with quick breaths. "You may not want to marry me when you know."

He saw that she was nerving herself to make some confession. Her connection with the stage and his own intimate knowledge of it, gained through professional attendance on many of its members, brought the disquieting thought that it might have to do with that ethical laxity that pervades its atmosphere. But none-the-less his arms went round her.

"I know the stage is a dashed hard place for a girl," he said gruffly. "So if it's anything that's finished and done with don't tell me."

She shook her head. "It's to do with me ... now."

"Not some other man?"

"No. Only you; you are the only one there ever has been, or ever will be."

"Then what in the world is wrong?"

Alexandra's words came tumbling out as though she feared her courage would evaporate before she could speak them.

"You said the stage was a hard place for girls. It is. It's all so wrong everywhere that the idea of a man proposing marriage is—is a surprise.... Oh, won't you understand?" She clasped her hands tensely. "You need not marry me—unless you want to, because I—didn't expect it."

She buried her head for very shame. Her last words were barely audible. She longed to look at him to learn what was in his face, but did not dare.

Meer did not leave her long in doubt.

"My dear," he said, moved to the very heart of him. "That is between you and me—and God."

XLI

After leaving Alexandra that morning Maggy had driven to Woolf's club. They had arranged to lunch together at some restaurant, but instead he bore her off to her flat, scarcely vouchsafing a word to her on the way. That he was in a towering rage she could see plainly enough. The reason for it she could not guess. He was apt to lose his temper. At such times she would tactfully wait until he had calmed down. Now, however, she was hungry and wanted her lunch, so she naturally asked for it.

"Where did you think of going for lunch?"

To her surprise he burst out violently: "Lunch be damned! You'll have lunch by yourself in future."

"What's the matter? What have I done?" she asked, placably enough.

"I've found you out, that's all."

Not another word could she extract from him until they were in the flat. Coaxing and gentleness only made him more morose. She began to feel afraid. What she could not see, because she did not know that the stage had lost quite a convincingly bombastic actor in Woolf, was that much of his anger was assumed; nor did she know that he was spoiling for a quarrel and that he had found a very good handle upon which to hang one. So blinded was she by her devotion that, except for the fact that since his return she had seen less of him than usual, she had not observed a certain weariness in his manner toward her. She did not at all know what he meant by saying he had found her out. Hoping to placate him by a show of affection she made an attempt to kiss him. But he repulsed her.

"I've had enough of that," he scowled. "It's all shammed, and it comes easy to you, my girl. I was up here half-an-hour ago and I saw your dressing-case."

"Well," she rejoined, "you've seen it before, haven't you?"

"Not with a sheet of headed notepaper sticking out of it—Purton Towers, that swine Chalfont's place!"

Maggy's face cleared. She thought she knew now what the storm portended and how to weather it.

"Oh, is that all?" she said lightly. "I took it to wrap my toothbrush in, you goose! I was going to tell you about it all, but I forgot because I was so happy at having you back."

"A likely story! You expect me to believe you forgot to admit you've been carrying on with Chalfont!"

"Oh, Fred!" she cried, horrified at the allegation.

"Well, let's have your expurgated version of it."

"I went there for Christmas with Lexie. And the Honorable Mrs. Pardiston, his aunt, was there too. We went to church, and there was a Christmas tree and a children's party. It was all quite proper and perfectly glorious. Lord Chalfont wouldn't do anything that was underhand."

"Of course you're bound to say that for your own sake. Look here, Maggy, you needn't tell me lies. I won't swallow them. You know perfectly well that if I'd known he'd asked you down to his rotten place I'd have stopped your going."

"I did think of that, Fred," she admitted; "but then I knew there was no harm in it, and if I hadn't gone Lexie wouldn't have been able to, either; and I wasn't looking forward to spending Christmas alone here. No flesh and blood girl could resist a square invitation like that. Why didn't you take me abroad with you if you couldn't trust me? I haven't asked you questions about where you've been or what you did while you were away. Besides, if it comes to that, husbands and wives often pay visits apart."

"Do you consider yourself particularly qualified to give an opinion about the habits of married people?" he sneered.

"That's a caddish thing to fling in my face," she cried indignantly.

Woolf flinched a little under her flashing eyes.

"This quarrel's getting vulgar," he retorted uneasily.

"It's of your making. Look me in the face, Fred, and you'll see I couldn't tell you a lie. Look at me, please."

He did so reluctantly.

"On my solemnest word of honor, on my awful love for you," she said with terrible earnestness, "I swear to you, Fred, that never once have I been unfaithful to you, even in thought."

"Never seen Chalfont in town, I suppose?" It was a chance shot, but Woolf saw that it had struck home. "Oh, so you have!" he followed up quickly. "Well—upon my word! That means, before I went away."

"Yes. You shan't say I'm deceiving you. I went to him to borrow some diamonds for Lexie."

The astonishing avowal staggered him.

"That's a pretty admission!" he laughed satirically. "Gentlemen are not in the habit of lending girls diamonds for nothing!"

"Oh, what do you know what gentlemen do?" she retorted, losing control of her temper.

Had she deliberately tried to wound his self-esteem she could have chosen no better way. Inadvertently she had touched on the raw. Woolf would not have admitted it for the world, but deep down in his consciousness he knew that he was not a gentleman and had no pretensions to be called one. What galled him more than all was that Maggy, whose status would have been considered a grade lower than his own, must have detected the social difference between himself and a man like Chalfont. Accidentally she found the vulnerable chink in his armor of swagger and carefully acquired polish.

"That will do," he said, getting up and flushing darkly. "It's a bit too thick when a girl of your class sets up to criticise a man of mine. I'm not a gentleman? Very well, that ends it between you and me."

The stark finality of his words and manner made her tremble all over.

"You mean—Oh, my God, Fred, you can't mean you're done with me?"

"That's about it.... You've got nothing to complain of. You'll be better off with Chalfont."

She ran to him and held him.

"You can't believe there's anything like that," she cried piteously. "Why, he wouldn't look at me—not in that way. He knows I belong to you. If he thinks of me at all it's as he would of the little East-end children that people take down into the country for a day. He's a lord and I'm just common Maggy, and he condescended to be kind to me. Believe me, Fred, believe me, or I—I shall die. I can't live without you. You know I can't!"

Woolf did believe her. Although he hated Chalfont and his exclusiveness, which had once been the means of humbling him, he knew well enough that because of that very exclusiveness he would be punctilious in his attitude toward Maggy. He did not make the mistake of comparing Maggy's position with that of Mrs. Lambert. The latter was a woman of some social standing, separated from her husband. What did genuinely enrage Woolf was that Chalfont should be so contemptuous of his, Woolf's, relations with Maggy that he could be friendly with her in spite of them. It meant that he was ignored. It was inconceivable to him that Chalfont's attitude toward her was largely dictated by a touching respect for her personality, and pity that she should be associated with such a man as himself.

"Don't make a scene," was his unmoved rejoinder. "We can settle things quite quietly if you'll be sensible."

Maggy felt a fierce desire to scream and laugh and cry and so break her nightmare by noise. The cataclysm had come upon her so suddenly; the break seemed so imminent; her hold over Woolf so frail. She seemed to have held him by a thread and that thread had now snapped. Her sensation was one of absolute shipwreck. She experienced the very paralysis of actual drowning, the throbbing of pulses in her head, the suffocation in her throat, the sense of being entirely submerged. And just as the drowning person is said to survey the past with startling clearness so she now had a rapid mental vista of her brief season of love and the desolation that would follow it if Woolf meant what he said.

"I'm not sensible," she pleaded. "You can't give me up for such a little thing as that. Oh, you're cruel, cruel!"

"If you're going to be hysterical I shan't stop."

His unrelenting manner had a steadying effect on her. Tortured, but silent, she stared at him. Could this be the man whom she had been able to soften and cajole with a mere pose of her body; the man who had taken possession of her with such controlling ardor that she was oblivious of the very details of her capitulation; the man whom she had loved with such devastating vehemence? She could see by the utterly unmoved expression of his face that it was impossible to stir his pity. There might be a bare chance of exciting his passion, but a new-born delicacy of feeling in her prevented an appeal to that side of his nature. She made a strong effort to keep a hold on herself.

"I won't be hysterical," she said. "But—I can't understand why you're going on like this. You loved me before you went abroad. What has happened since?"

His eyes shifted from her face.

"What has happened since?" she repeated.

Woolf would not answer her. He got up and went to her little inlaid bureau, picked up a pen, squared his elbows and began writing something. Quivering with emotion, her breast heaving, her breath coming in gasping sobs, she stood where she was, incurious as to what he was doing. Presently he turned, and placed a piece of paper on the table.

"You can stay on here till the end of the quarter," he said. "After that I shall sublet it. And here"—he pushed the paper toward her—"is a little present for you."

She took a stumbling step toward him, arms outstretched, her poor face working.

"Fred! Don't go!" she shrieked.

But he had got to the door. He would go. Nothing she could say or do would stop him. She had just enough presence of mind left not to follow him. Even in that moment of distress she had the sublime unselfishness to refrain from making a scene beyond the privacy of the flat—on his account.

She tottered back to the table, clutching at it for support, stared down at the slip of paper he had left there—paper with a pretty lacy pattern, and read:

"Pay to Miss Delamere ... or order Twenty-five pounds."

The words danced before her eyes like little black mocking devils.... Twenty-five pounds! The price which Woolf thought sufficient to buy her off!

Mad now, she scrawled her name on the back of the cheque, caught up her hat and ran downstairs into the street. At the corner there generally stood a miserable woman with a baby, selling flowers. She was there now. Maggy was a regular customer of hers. She thrust the cheque upon her.

"It's signed on the back. Take it—oh, take it!" she said wildly, closed the dumfounded woman's fingers on the cheque, and sped on.

She went fast, walking aimlessly, conscious of nothing but the desire for movement. She wanted to lose herself, to forget herself. Of the things around her she saw nothing, heard nothing. Her processes of thought seemed to be exhausted. Her brain was a mere reservoir of utter hopelessness.

Yet, all the while, it was insensibly driving her in a given direction. In a dull way she realized this when she found herself in the street where Woolf lived. She had never been there since the day of that eventful lunch with him, seven months ago. The memory of it had a clarifying effect on her troubled mind. It calmed her frenzy. She asked herself what she meant to do, but could find no answer. She had not consciously intended going to his house. All motive for doing so was absent. Yet she could not pass it.

She rang the bell, and when the door was opened enquired for Woolf.

"Mr. Woolf is not in, miss," said the servant; "but Lady Susan is, if you would like to see her."

Maggy, still mentally benumbed, entered and followed her.

XLII

The room Maggy was shown into was occupied by a woman of about twenty-seven, busy at the telephone. She looked up casually, keeping the receiver at her ear.

"Take a pew," she said, and addressed herself to the instrument again, continuing a momentarily interrupted conversation.

It was spirited, and apparently had to do with a bookmaker, for it involved a "pony" on this and a "pony" on that and a "tenner both ways" on something else. Several sporting papers, one of them The Jockey's Weekly owned by Woolf, lay on the table at her elbow, with "Weatherby's" to keep them company.

Maggy did not sit down as invited. There was something about the woman at the telephone that gave her a mental stimulus, almost put her on the defensive. All her torpidity left her. The other went on speaking into the instrument, interspersing her instructions with slang and stable-talk. She was untidily dressed in clothes of an accentuated sporting cut. Maggy, catching sight of herself in a mirror, twitched her hat straight, turned her back and powdered her nose. Then she stood still, waiting for eventualities.

With an "All right, see you on Thursday. Cheer-O," the woman rang off and swung round in her chair, bestowing on Maggy a hard-eyed scrutiny.

"Don't think I know you, do I?" she asked. "And that half-baked woman of mine didn't announce your name."

"Come to think of it I don't know yours," returned Maggy, instinctively full of a sense of antagonism. "She said something about Mr. Woolf being out and Lady Susan in."

"That's right. My name's Susan.... Have a drink?"

Maggy, flabbergasted, said, "No, thank you." She was puzzling her mind to account for this young woman's presence in Woolf's house when it suddenly occurred to her that there could only be one explanation of it. "You seem to be at home here," she remarked.

"That's rather cool," the other laughed. "I am at home. Who the deuce d'you think I am?"

"I haven't an idea. All I know is, you said your name was Susan, and the maid said you were a lady."

This rather wicked thrust only called forth another laugh, curiously unresentful.

"Oh, well, if you want the whole of it, I'm Lady Susan Woolf, sister of the Earl of Cantire." Without a trace of mauvaise honte the speaker went on, "You've heard of us, I should think: the hottest lot in the peerage."

Maggy's blank look showed that she was still at fault.

"But what relation—" she began.

"I'm Mr. Woolf's wife," cut in that lady. "Are you—the other woman?"

A quiver, not unlike that which vibrates through a ship when it runs on a sunken rock, convulsed Maggy. Like a stricken ship she seemed to hear the waters of desolation rushing through her vitals. But she kept her nerve. She would go down, if she had to, with band playing and flags flying, so to speak. Not to this woman, who was regarding her with lazy indifference, would she show the white feather, admit defeat or desertion. But Fred secretly married! ... He had lied to get away on his honeymoon ... and then come back to her after it! ... The rank infidelity of it ... to two women at once. All Maggy's womanhood was up in arms, outraged.

"You use rather odd language," she said with dreadful calm. "I think I must have come to the wrong house."

"Well, if you came to see Fred Woolf he lives here—when he's in." Again the low, lazy laugh accompanied the rejoinder.

"Do I amuse you?" asked Maggy.

"No, not you personally. You look too dashed serious. Drawing room melodrama sort of expression. The situation's a bit quaint. Not many wives would take it calmly when their husband's pasts come knocking at their front door and walking in without being asked. I don't care. Daresay some of my old flames will flicker up now and then. I'm easy-going because it pays. But, honestly, I hope Fred hasn't left you on the mat?"

The question was quite devoid of offense.

"I said I must have come to the wrong house," reiterated Maggy. "I've only been in this street once before, and I wasn't sure of the number."

"This photograph tell you anything?" Lady Susan passed one across. "It's Fred's. I think I hear his gentle footfall in the hall, so you'll know how things are in a minute."

Maggy braced herself to look at the silver-framed portrait. She had a facsimile of it at the flat on the side-table by her bed, signed "Your warm friend." This one was similarly inscribed. Evidently Woolf followed a routine in such matters.

She heard his step outside and his voice calling "Susan, where are you?" but she did not look up when he opened the door. Only Lady Susan saw his startled glance of recognition. It confirmed what she had already guessed. She watched the two of them with the zest she would have given to a prize fight.

Maggy took her eyes from the photograph and set it down on the table so that from where he stood Woolf could see that it was his.

"No. I don't know that—gentleman," she said with calm incisiveness. And then, as if she had only just become aware of his presence, looked straight at him. The absence of all recognition in that look was quite perfectly done. With her eyes still on him she moved to the door and paused there.

And then she addressed him in the tone one adopts toward a person who exhibits a lack of ordinary manners.

"Will you please open the door?"

She passed out, band playing, flags flying.

XLIII

Somewhere about three o'clock Maggy got back to her flat. She was as calm as death, and knew exactly what she had to do. In her nature there were few complexities: intuition guided her most of the time. Now she simply did not want to live. She was not only heart-broken because of Woolf's desertion but utterly crushed in spirit at having discovered that every foolish ideal with which she had endowed him had had no existence except in her imagination. That reflection made her despise herself as much as she despised him. If the breach could have occurred without such callous perfidy on his part, she might still have retained her self-respect. How much more preferable that would have been, even though it meant she might have gone on loving him.

How she had loved him! She had poured out to him all the passionate first-love of an exceedingly ardent nature; she had gloried in him, suffered for him. She had been content with an illicit position, even to the extent of refraining from urging him to legitimize their union when there was a reason for it—one that would have stirred the compassion of any other man. She had not thought herself good enough to be his wife, because, in effect if not in direct words, he had told her so. She saw him now as he really was, an unutterable cad, despicable, utterly snobbish. He had married with the sole object of associating himself with a titled family. That it was in bad odor made no difference to him. To hear the announcement or to read in print of "Mr. Woolf and the Lady Susan Woolf" had no doubt been the prevailing factor with him. It was clear enough to Maggy. He had not considered her a fit wife for himself because she was a chorus-girl, yet he had married a woman infinitely more common in the slangy sister of a decadent peer.

And all the time he had been contemplating this marriage she had made a jest of it, teasing him about a honeymoon abroad, unwittingly joking about the terrible truth! To think of it was gall and wormwood. She had trusted the man. Her own honesty had made her assume that he was incapable of deception. Conformity with the easy code of honor which men generally adhere to, even in an irregular union, was all she had expected. It had been denied her.

She was filled with a distaste for life. It could be so simply ended. There was a bottle of laudanum in the cupboard over her washstand. Without any hesitation she poured its contents into a tumbler and drank it off. It tasted so nasty that she ate a chocolate afterwards. Then she locked her door and lay down on her bed. Nothing in the world mattered now, not even Alexandra. She was too weary to think of her, even to analyze what she believed to be her own last sensations. Mentally exhausted she fell asleep.

She slept from half-past three until half-past nine, woke up suddenly and felt horribly ill. Her memory was quite clear. She remembered everything that had happened that day and what she had done, and wondered whether she was dead. A dreadful nausea and discomfort left her in doubt. Presently she decided she was not dead but wished she were. She dragged herself to her feet and, obeying instinct, made herself an emetic. Though she did not wish to live she wanted to put an end to her appalling sensations. Later on, she drank two cups of strong black coffee, and soon after knew she was recovering. She must have taken either too little or too much of the horrid stuff.

She lay back, waiting for its nauseating effect to wear off. Half-an-hour passed inertly. Then abruptly her mind went to Alexandra, and she sat up. Lexie was on the verge of taking the reckless step which she, Maggy, had so long been advising, and Lexie must be stopped. She gave a hurried look at the clock. Nearly eleven! She might just catch her at the theater. She flew downstairs, found a taxi and drove there, just too late. Lexie had left a few minutes ago. On her way out again she ran up against the stage-manager.

"Hullo, Miss Delamere," he began; "what do you mean by turning up after the show? You seem quite indifferent to fines." Then he observed her livid face and the dark circles round her eyes. "Why, you look like death! What's the matter?"

"Nothing.... Let me go, Mr. Powell. I'll be all right soon. I want to find Miss Hersey."

She tore away, jumped into another cab and drove to Sidey Street.

Alexandra was luxuriating in the unwonted extravagance of a fire. That and the song she was humming were evidence of a new serenity of mind that had come to her. She was leisurely undressing, thinking of her impending marriage, when Maggy burst into the room, a Maggy whom she scarcely recognized. She had not been much concerned at her absence from the theater that night. She so often played truant.

Maggy reeled toward her. Alexandra caught her in her arms.

"Darling, what is it?" she cried in alarm.

Maggy clung to her like a terrified child.

"Lexie," she gasped, "am I too late? Am I too late? You haven't—Oh, my God! Lexie, it isn't worth it. Men—"

And then she fainted. Alexandra got her on to the bed, loosened her things, and called for Mrs. Bell. Together they managed to get a little brandy between her lips. The landlady dabbed her face with a wet towel; Alexandra held smelling salts to her nose, and presently she drew the reluctant breath of returning consciousness.

"Please go now," Alexandra requested Mrs. Bell. "I'll look after her. She shall stay with me to-night."

Mrs. Bell protested that she wanted to stop. Her penchant for any form of illness enchained her. She argued that she might be needed, and only reluctantly left the room when Maggy opened her eyes and murmured a request to be alone with her friend. She lay with her face against Alexandra's shoulder, and then began to cry, weakly but uncontrollably.