The room Maggy was shown into was occupied by a woman of about
twenty-seven, busy at the telephone. She looked up casually, keeping
the receiver at her ear.
"Take a pew," she said, and addressed herself to the instrument again,
continuing a momentarily interrupted conversation.
It was spirited, and apparently had to do with a bookmaker, for it
involved a "pony" on this and a "pony" on that and a "tenner both ways"
on something else. Several sporting papers, one of them _The Jockey's
Weekly_ owned by Woolf, lay on the table at her elbow, with
"Weatherby's" to keep them company.
Maggy did not sit down as invited. There was something about the woman
at the telephone that gave her a mental stimulus, almost put her on the
defensive. All her torpidity left her. The other went on speaking into
the instrument, interspersing her instructions with slang and
stable-talk. She was untidily dressed in clothes of an accentuated
sporting cut. Maggy, catching sight of herself in a mirror, twitched
her hat straight, turned her back and powdered her nose. Then she stood
still, waiting for eventualities.
With an "All right, see you on Thursday. Cheer-O," the woman rang off
and swung round in her chair, bestowing on Maggy a hard-eyed scrutiny.
"Don't think I know you, do I?" she asked. "And that half-baked woman of
mine didn't announce your name."
"Come to think of it I don't know yours," returned Maggy, instinctively
full of a sense of antagonism. "She said something about Mr. Woolf
being out and Lady Susan in."
"That's right. My name's Susan.... Have a drink?"
Maggy, flabbergasted, said, "No, thank you." She was puzzling her mind
to account for this young woman's presence in Woolf's house when it
suddenly occurred to her that there could only be one explanation of it.
"You seem to be at home here," she remarked.
"That's rather cool," the other laughed. "I _am_ at home. Who the
deuce d'you think I am?"
"I haven't an idea. All I know is, you said your name was Susan, and
the maid said you were a lady."
This rather wicked thrust only called forth another laugh, curiously
unresentful.
"Oh, well, if you want the whole of it, I'm Lady Susan Woolf, sister of
the Earl of Cantire." Without a trace of _mauvaise honte_ the speaker
went on, "You've heard of us, I should think: the hottest lot in the
peerage."
Maggy's blank look showed that she was still at fault.
"But what relation--" she began.
"I'm Mr. Woolf's wife," cut in that lady. "Are you--the other woman?"
A quiver, not unlike that which vibrates through a ship when it runs on
a sunken rock, convulsed Maggy. Like a stricken ship she seemed to hear
the waters of desolation rushing through her vitals. But she kept her
nerve. She would go down, if she had to, with band playing and flags
flying, so to speak. Not to this woman, who was regarding her with lazy
indifference, would she show the white feather, admit defeat or
desertion. But Fred secretly married! ... He had lied to get away on
his honeymoon ... and then come back to her after it! ... The rank
infidelity of it ... to two women at once. All Maggy's womanhood was up
in arms, outraged.
"You use rather odd language," she said with dreadful calm. "I think I
must have come to the wrong house."
"Well, if you came to see Fred Woolf he lives here--when he's in."
Again the low, lazy laugh accompanied the rejoinder.
"Do I amuse you?" asked Maggy.
"No, not you personally. You look too dashed serious. Drawing room
melodrama sort of expression. The situation's a bit quaint. Not many
wives would take it calmly when their husband's pasts come knocking at
their front door and walking in without being asked. _I_ don't care.
Daresay some of my old flames will flicker up now and then. I'm
easy-going because it pays. But, honestly, I hope Fred hasn't left you
on the mat?"
The question was quite devoid of offense.
"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.