"I didn't want it to. I felt I couldn't just go and give an order to a florist who grows flowers on purpose for graves. I was up ever so early this morning and motored into the country. The dew was all over the hedges. That's where I got the leaves from. And in the cottage gardens wherever I saw the sort of flowers I'd have liked some one to give me, whether I was dead or alive, I stopped and asked the woman to pick me a few for a wreath for a sweet lady. They were so pleased to give them. Not one would take payment. They were given flowers, given for love, fresh and—"
She broke off, shy at having exhibited her feelings. It saddened Chalfont to think of her in association with such a man as Woolf. In spite of it she was still something of a child, with a child's pretty thoughts. But the next moment her womanliness showed itself.
"Are you going away?" she asked. "I would, if I were a man and had lost all I loved I should go away to places where I could kill something. Wild places, where there's solitude and danger, so that it would be quite sporting to keep alive.... You'd come back feeling different ... and perhaps marry some nice girl who would love you and make up for all that's happened.... I think Mrs. Lambert would wish that."
She spoke as if Mrs. Lambert were not so far away.
"What makes you say that?" he wondered.
"Because—because she told me things." Maggy hesitated. "May I draw up the blinds before I go?"
They pulled up the blinds together and let the autumn sunshine into the room. Maggy threw up one of the windows. They stood side by side looking at the movement in the street. Around a barrel organ a little way off children were dancing. A man and a girl, looking into each other's eyes, passed under the window. On the opposite side a woman was wheeling a perambulator, running every now and then so that the baby in it screamed with delight. The roar of London's traffic came from a distance. Maggy's eyes grew soft.
"Life goes on," she said.
XXVI
The landlady of 109 Sidey Street opened the door to Maggy.