When Chalfont set the two girls down at the stage-door on Boxing night Maggy pressed a note into his hand. He read it at his club, where he went to dine before returning to the theater. "’Thank you very much’ sounds so beastly ordinary in words, so I must write it, because I want you to know that I am ever so grateful for the way you have treated me. It’s proper for a darling saint like Lexie to be asked to stay at Purton Towers. But me—that’s another thing. I shall get into hot water with Mr. Woolf for coming, and I don’t suppose he’ll allow it again if you ask me, or even let me see you. But don’t ever think that I can forget your kindness. Although you know what I am you have had me down to your beautiful home, with your sweet honorable aunt just as if I wasn’t a common girl, which I am. The only thing I can say is that perhaps if I had been properly brought up and had a name to be proud of I shouldn’t have dragged it in the mud like I have my own silly name which can’t belong to me because it’s the classy kind actresses make up. Don’t laugh. I’m not often serious, but I do say God bless you and I mean it. "MAGGY." The overture was coming to an end when Chalfont took his seat in the stalls. As the curtain swished up his eyes went to Maggy, scantily clad in diaphanous chiffon. He was thinking of the golden heart of the girl, not at all of her compulsorily over-exposed beauty. But Maggy was blushing beneath her grease paint. A sudden access of modesty had come over her. It was as baffling to herself as was the remark she flung to the girl dancing beside her—one, two, three and a kick. "What wouldn’t I give for a blanket!" XXXVI One evening, a few days after Christmas, De Freyne waylaid Alexandra as she was coming from her dressing-room. "Your cough doesn’t seem to go," he said. "People in the stalls don’t want to be reminded of graveyards. It’s rather suggestive. You ought to see a doctor." "I’ll find out who my panel doctor is," she said. "I should prefer you to go to Bernard Meer. Son of the late Sir Morton Meer, you know. Like his father, he’s a throat specialist, and not given to charging fees to members of the profession. Say you’re at the Pall Mall and mention my name when you see him." She was reluctant to do as De Freyne wished, but he was insistent, and she promised to call at the Wimpole Street address which he gave her. It seemed rather absurd to go to a specialist for a bottle of cough mixture. She took her slight throat affection as a matter-of-course, a cold induced by the draughts on the stage and the change of temperature to which she was exposed after leaving the theater at night.