Then a daring thought came into her head. Alexandra had told her that Lord Chalfont was back in London. Couldn't he do something? Ever a slave to the enthusiasm of the moment, she looked up Chalfont's address in the telephone index and then drove there. Her heart went into her mouth as she thought of what Woolf would say if he knew where she was bound for. But that did not stop her. She was one of Nature's gamblers, and the element of danger in the undertaking gave her a certain relish for it.
Chalfont was just going to sit down to his breakfast—it was only half-past nine—when she was announced. The earliness of her visit surprised him, but he was none the less pleased to see her. Many times during his absence he had recalled her pretty face, her extraordinary gift of honest frankness, and above all the sympathetic womanliness she had shown at their last meeting.
"I expect you think I'm mad coming to see you so early in the morning," she began.
"I'm glad to see you at any time," he said. "Have you had breakfast?"
"I snatched it. I wanted to catch you in, and I didn't want my Fred to know. He wouldn't like me to be here. Of course, I shan't tell him, because I've come in a good cause. Can you lend me some diamonds?"
He was a little staggered by the request. He would have been prepared to swear that Maggy was not of the grasping sort, and yet here she was, admittedly against the regulations, blandly asking him for diamonds at half-past nine in the morning. He laughed.
"Look here, I haven't had breakfast yet. It's ready. Suppose you have it with me and tell me why you want them."
"May I? I should love it."
He rang the bell, and his man quickly laid another place at the table.
"Sole, omelette, kidneys?" inquired Chalfont. "You need not wait, Mitchell."