The surge of feeling, the thrill she experienced as he said "I want you," left her in no doubt as to her own emotions. She not only loved, she loved without reservation, with a magnitude so huge that it seemed as though a transport of yearning were being pumped into her by some external Titanic force. And it came from him, the man facing, close to her. She heard the clarion cry of sex for the first time in a crowded restaurant, where she could not even cover her face with her hands and so hide her besieged virginity from the sight of men. She could only sit still and feel her shame creeping into her face. Maggy, glancing her way every now and then, saw the agitation that was moving her and thought she was going to faint. "Lexie’s ill!" she whispered anxiously, and was about to get up and go to her. Woolf’s hand detained her. He had been watching Meer, and also seen Alexandra’s face. "Sit still," he commanded. "But she’s going to faint!" "Not she!" "Then—what’s the matter with her?" "_Can’t you see?_" he chuckled. Maggy gasped. Lexie, of all people—at last! It was as if she saw a huge warm wave gathering, gaining speed, advancing on the game little swimmer and bearing her off captive. XXXVIII Alexandra sat on the edge of her bed. In the little room with the cistern the temperature was bitterly cold, but she was insensible to it. He had said wonderful things. He had said she was beautiful.... By the light of the candle she peered into the glass, trying to see her face as he had seen it. Perhaps it was the effect of the two great plaits of dark hair that hung framing it, or of a certain new softness in her eyes, of something knowledgeable that she had not seen there before, but she felt that she was looking at herself for the first time unveiled. Her hands went to her nightgown, holding it to her; then, as involuntarily, they loosened. Shyly, as though she were not alone, she gazed back at the dim reflection in the mirror and knew that girlhood was behind her, that she was no longer, as Kipling’s little maid, "A field unfilled, a web unwove, A bud withheld from sun or bee, An alien in the courts of Love, And priestess of his shrine is she." All rosy, she blew out the light. XXXIX Next morning Maggy was round at Sidey Street. She felt that confidences were in the air. If Alexandra was not dying to impart them she at least was "all of a twitter" to hear them. "Lexie," she cried, bursting in, "don’t have any secrets from me. Who is he?" Alexandra was in the act of writing a letter. She looked up apathetically. "You mean the man I was with last night?" she said. "I’m not going to see him any more, so we won’t talk about him." "Oh, yes, we will! Why, I do believe you’re writing to him now!" "You can read what I’ve written."