"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.