XL
The crisis of surrender once passed Alexandra shed no more tears. Not that she ceased to feel. Indeed, her sensibilities were all on edge and remained so. But other feminine instincts soon asserted themselves. One was the blessed refuge of clothes. Tragedy notwithstanding, she must make herself presentable. She thought it would distract her. At first it did because she had to scheme to make the most of her dwindling store of wearing apparel. All that she was rich in were those outer garments bequeathed to her by Mrs. Lambert. For hours she adapted this and repaired that, improvising a pretense at a trousseau. That it was only pretense burnt itself into her brain. Every ribbon she threaded through slotted embroidery was not unlike a tug at her heart strings. All her things had been marked with her name in full by the hands of the loved mother who had put every stitch into them. Well, there would be no change of name. She tried not to think what the dead mother, who had treasured her and taught her to pray, would feel if she could know of the step her only daughter was about to take. And though God now seemed to have turned His face from her, or she hers from God, she thanked Him for the dead's sake that avowal of it could not be made. Her mood was one of thankfulness for small mercies. She no longer rebelled against the laxity of stage morals. She was going to conform to them. The stage had deadened her susceptibilities to right and wrong. She was of it. She had elected to go the way it pointed. She had let down the drawbridge of her maidenhood for the besieging host to walk over as an invited guest.
In the midst of her needlework and her bitter thoughts there came the sound of feet mounting the stairs. Mrs. Bell opened the door and announced "The doctor to see you, Miss Hersey," in a tone that clearly proclaimed that his visit provided her with a touch of the same kind of excitement which she derived from a funeral. Alexandra was on her feet by this time, painfully conscious of the litter of garments that lay around her. Coloring, she gathered them all up in a heap, and turned to face her lover. He stood still, impatiently waiting for Mrs. Bell to depart, and only spoke when the sound of her descending footsteps had died away. Then he took Alexandra in his arms and kissed her.
"I got your note a quarter of an hour ago," he said. "I couldn't wait. I want to know about this wretched stage business. How soon can you get out of it?"
The question took her aback. She could not understand why he should wish her to leave the stage. She assumed that her connection with it had been the spur to his desire of her.
"But—" she faltered, "do you want me to leave it?"
"Don't you want to?"
"I—I don't think I ought to, now that I've made a start—"
"But, my dear child," he interrupted, "you won't want to work for your living when you're my wife!"
She almost doubted the evidence of her ears.