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?"