Somewhere about three o'clock Maggy got back to her flat. She was as calm as death, and knew exactly what she had to do. In her nature there were few complexities: intuition guided her most of the time. Now she simply did not want to live. She was not only heart-broken because of Woolf's desertion but utterly crushed in spirit at having discovered that every foolish ideal with which she had endowed him had had no existence except in her imagination. That reflection made her despise herself as much as she despised him. If the breach could have occurred without such callous perfidy on his part, she might still have retained her self-respect. How much more preferable that would have been, even though it meant she might have gone on loving him.
How she had loved him! She had poured out to him all the passionate first-love of an exceedingly ardent nature; she had gloried in him, suffered for him. She had been content with an illicit position, even to the extent of refraining from urging him to legitimize their union when there was a reason for it—one that would have stirred the compassion of any other man. She had not thought herself good enough to be his wife, because, in effect if not in direct words, he had told her so. She saw him now as he really was, an unutterable cad, despicable, utterly snobbish. He had married with the sole object of associating himself with a titled family. That it was in bad odor made no difference to him. To hear the announcement or to read in print of "Mr. Woolf and the Lady Susan Woolf" had no doubt been the prevailing factor with him. It was clear enough to Maggy. He had not considered her a fit wife for himself because she was a chorus-girl, yet he had married a woman infinitely more common in the slangy sister of a decadent peer.
And all the time he had been contemplating this marriage she had made a jest of it, teasing him about a honeymoon abroad, unwittingly joking about the terrible truth! To think of it was gall and wormwood. She had trusted the man. Her own honesty had made her assume that he was incapable of deception. Conformity with the easy code of honor which men generally adhere to, even in an irregular union, was all she had expected. It had been denied her.
She was filled with a distaste for life. It could be so simply ended. There was a bottle of laudanum in the cupboard over her washstand. Without any hesitation she poured its contents into a tumbler and drank it off. It tasted so nasty that she ate a chocolate afterwards. Then she locked her door and lay down on her bed. Nothing in the world mattered now, not even Alexandra. She was too weary to think of her, even to analyze what she believed to be her own last sensations. Mentally exhausted she fell asleep.
She slept from half-past three until half-past nine, woke up suddenly and felt horribly ill. Her memory was quite clear. She remembered everything that had happened that day and what she had done, and wondered whether she was dead. A dreadful nausea and discomfort left her in doubt. Presently she decided she was not dead but wished she were. She dragged herself to her feet and, obeying instinct, made herself an emetic. Though she did not wish to live she wanted to put an end to her appalling sensations. Later on, she drank two cups of strong black coffee, and soon after knew she was recovering. She must have taken either too little or too much of the horrid stuff.
She lay back, waiting for its nauseating effect to wear off. Half-an-hour passed inertly. Then abruptly her mind went to Alexandra, and she sat up. Lexie was on the verge of taking the reckless step which she, Maggy, had so long been advising, and Lexie must be stopped. She gave a hurried look at the clock. Nearly eleven! She might just catch her at the theater. She flew downstairs, found a taxi and drove there, just too late. Lexie had left a few minutes ago. On her way out again she ran up against the stage-manager.
"Hullo, Miss Delamere," he began; "what do you mean by turning up after the show? You seem quite indifferent to fines." Then he observed her livid face and the dark circles round her eyes. "Why, you look like death! What's the matter?"
"Nothing.... Let me go, Mr. Powell. I'll be all right soon. I want to find Miss Hersey."
She tore away, jumped into another cab and drove to Sidey Street.
Alexandra was luxuriating in the unwonted extravagance of a fire. That and the song she was humming were evidence of a new serenity of mind that had come to her. She was leisurely undressing, thinking of her impending marriage, when Maggy burst into the room, a Maggy whom she scarcely recognized. She had not been much concerned at her absence from the theater that night. She so often played truant.