"I've got something to show you," Woolf said. "Hop in."
Maggy got into the car. She had been lunching with Woolf at his house.
He always sent her to Sidey Street in his car, but never went there with
her. He hated slums and mean streets. He had been born and bred in them
and had had enough of them.
"Coming too?" she asked.
"Yes. I'm going to take you to see something I've just fixed up. I
want to know what you think of it. It's a flat."
"Oh."
He got in beside her and set the car going. Maggy had been holding him
at arm's length all the afternoon. He was getting a little tired of the
pursuit and intended it should end. He could not associate Maggy with
protracted virtue. If she persisted in this pose--for he thought it was
a pose--he would lose interest in her. He had told her as much at
lunch.
"Oh, rubbish!" Maggy had responded, munching at a pear that only a rich
man could afford to buy out of season. "Courting's a change for you."
"It's too much trouble. In business I work hard. I know what I want
and I go on till I get it. With women I don't want hard work. Besides,
unripe fruit is sour. It's best when it's ready to fall."
"Then you've come under the wrong tree," she said cheekily.
But she knew that the fruit was trembling on its stem--ripe.
"About this flat," she said, when they were on their way, "are you
thinking of moving?"
"No."
Woolf turned and looked at her intently. She could not face the
searching in his eyes; she blushed and was angry with herself.
"I don't see what you want my opinion for, anyway," she said, to cover
her confusion.
"It's funny, but I do."
He said no more. Maggy's thoughts occupied her for the rest of the
drive. She sat back in her seat, out of contact with Woolf. When he
was close to her, or his clothing touched her, a breathless sensation
assailed her, sapping her strength.
The flat he took her to see was a furnished one in Bloomsbury, small but
attractive in her eyes. It contained a bedroom, a bathroom and a sitting
room. Meals were obtainable at a reasonable price in a restaurant
attached to the building. The rooms had every appearance of being lived
in. There were flowers in sitting room and bedroom, magazines, a box of
chocolates: on the bedroom dressing-table was a brand-new silver
toilette set and brushes. Among the pictures on the walls, framed in
black and gold, were several studies of female figures in the nude. The
electric lights were rose-shaded.
Maggy was entranced with the place. She forgot her defensive attitude
and showed frank pleasure in all she saw. She fingered the silver
brushes lovingly, smelt the flowers, munched a chocolate.
The white-tiled bathroom with its plated fittings appealed to her
strongly.
"Hot and cold!" she murmured. "Not in bits but all at once. Scrummy!"
"What are you talking about?" said Woolf, amused.
"In Sidey Street we have a foot-bath and wash in bits," she explained
frankly. "I've dreamt of baths like this. I've never had one."
She turned on the taps with the fascination of a child, and watched the
water run.
"So you like it all?"
"I should just think I did!"
She perched on the edge of the bath, swinging a foot.
"You've really taken it?"
"For three years."
"Who's coming to it?"
"It's for a good girl."
"You mean for a bad girl," she pouted.
"She'll be good--to me."
"Well, I hope she'll like it."