Maggy's face flushed crimson and then went white. Mrs. Lambert's hand still lay on hers. Contact with it gave her a feeling of sisterhood, a longing to confide. Her pent up feelings suddenly found voice.
"I want to tell some one," she choked. "I've got to go through with something I hate--and dread. I've longed to speak to another woman about it, but there was only Lexie, and she's not"--she stumbled over the word--"married. I wouldn't tell her. It wouldn't have been right."
"I--can't see your face," whispered Maggy fearfully.
Then Maggy unburdened her soul. A flood of unreserved words broke from her. Mrs. Lambert neither moved nor spoke, but the grasp of her hand tightened as the poignant story culminated.
"I daren't let myself think about it," Maggy's faltering voice went on. "If I think too much my brain begins to rock, and I'm afraid. It's wonderful and awful and I don't feel the same. The other day I saw a woman in the street. She had such a pretty baby in her arms. It was too heavy for her to carry, and she looked dead tired, but I could see by her face how she loved it, weight and all, and I had to hold on to myself to stop from screaming out, 'You're lucky. You can keep yours. I--'" Something she dimly discerned in Mrs. Lambert's face brought her to a sudden stop. "Why, I've made you cry!" she said contritely. "What a brute I am!"
"No, no. Don't take your hand away," was the soft rejoinder. "You poor child! My heart aches for you."
When Maggy re-entered the drawing room her eyes were suspiciously red. She seemed anxious to get away. She put her arms round Alexandra and hugged her.
"Good-by, Lexie," she said breathlessly. "Don't forget me. The best of luck. Mrs. Lambert's an angel. T-tell her so--from me."
She tore herself away, pulled down her veil, and was gone, leaving Alexandra bewildered.
Maggy stopped at a jeweler's on her way home. Taking off her bracelet, she handed it to the man behind the counter.
"Don't bother to tell me what it's worth. Just say whether it's real or sham," she said.
She dropped it into her bag and went out, with a new pain gripping at her heart. She never wore the bracelet again.
After dinner that evening Woolf remarked its absence. She had worn it ever since he had given it to her.