XXIIn 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. Imustleave 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. Itwasreal. 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. Iseverythingwrong?""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."XXIIThey 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.XXIIIAlexandra 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. NoMrs.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.XXIVIt 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.XXVThe 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. Ididhate 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 theJockey's Weeklyand 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 weregivenflowers, 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.
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. Imustleave 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. Itwasreal. 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. Iseverythingwrong?"
"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. NoMrs.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. Ididhate 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 theJockey's Weeklyand 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 weregivenflowers, 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.