"I said I must have come to the wrong house," reiterated Maggy. "I've only been in this street once before, and I wasn't sure of the number."
"This photograph tell you anything?" Lady Susan passed one across. "It's Fred's. I think I hear his gentle footfall in the hall, so you'll know how things are in a minute."
Maggy braced herself to look at the silver-framed portrait. She had a facsimile of it at the flat on the side-table by her bed, signed "Your warm friend." This one was similarly inscribed. Evidently Woolf followed a routine in such matters.
She heard his step outside and his voice calling "Susan, where are you?" but she did not look up when he opened the door. Only Lady Susan saw his startled glance of recognition. It confirmed what she had already guessed. She watched the two of them with the zest she would have given to a prize fight.
Maggy took her eyes from the photograph and set it down on the table so that from where he stood Woolf could see that it was his.
"No. I don't know that—gentleman," she said with calm incisiveness. And then, as if she had only just become aware of his presence, looked straight at him. The absence of all recognition in that look was quite perfectly done. With her eyes still on him she moved to the door and paused there.
And then she addressed him in the tone one adopts toward a person who exhibits a lack of ordinary manners.
"Will you please open the door?"
She passed out, band playing, flags flying.
XLIII