Chalfont did not pursue the subject.
"I must go now," said Maggy. "Good-by.... Oh, I forgot to thank you for
the roses." She colored, remembering the fate they had suffered.
"I'm glad you liked them. They were Mrs. Lambert's favorites."
"Oh, were they? If I'd known that I would have got some instead of the
wreath I sent."
"It was a beautiful wreath--so simple. She wouldn't have wished it
altered if she could have seen it. It didn't remind one of a funeral."
"I didn't want it to. I felt I couldn't just go and give an order to a
florist who grows flowers on purpose for graves. I was up ever so early
this morning and motored into the country. The dew was all over the
hedges. That's where I got the leaves from. And in the cottage gardens
wherever I saw the sort of flowers I'd have liked some one to give me,
whether I was dead or alive, I stopped and asked the woman to pick me a
few for a wreath for a sweet lady. They were so pleased to give them.
Not one would take payment. They were _given_ flowers, given for love,
fresh and--"
She broke off, shy at having exhibited her feelings. It saddened
Chalfont to think of her in association with such a man as Woolf. In
spite of it she was still something of a child, with a child's pretty
thoughts. But the next moment her womanliness showed itself.
"Are you going away?" she asked. "I would, if I were a man and had lost
all I loved I should go away to places where I could kill something.
Wild places, where there's solitude and danger, so that it would be
quite sporting to keep alive.... You'd come back feeling different ...
and perhaps marry some nice girl who would love you and make up for all
that's happened.... I think Mrs. Lambert would wish that."
She spoke as if Mrs. Lambert were not so far away.
"What makes you say that?" he wondered.
"Because--because she told me things." Maggy hesitated. "May I draw up
the blinds before I go?"
They pulled up the blinds together and let the autumn sunshine into the
room. Maggy threw up one of the windows. They stood side by side
looking at the movement in the street. Around a barrel organ a little
way off children were dancing. A man and a girl, looking into each
other's eyes, passed under the window. On the opposite side a woman was
wheeling a perambulator, running every now and then so that the baby in
it screamed with delight. The roar of London's traffic came from a
distance. Maggy's eyes grew soft.
"Life goes on," she said.