Thus invited, Maggy looked over her shoulder. Alexandra had begun a stilted little note to Bernard Meer in which she briefly refused to meet him any more. "I don’t think you’ll post it," said Maggy shrewdly. "It doesn’t ring true. Besides, what do you want to run away from him for? He looked just the sort of man one could trust, not a bit like the stage-door pest kind." She cross-examined Alexandra, dragged from her the few bald details of her half-dozen meetings with Meer. "Of course you’re in love with him," she declared. "I saw it in your face. If I hadn’t been so taken up with Fred I should have found out things before last night. Lexie, what’s going to happen?" The tone in which Maggy asked the question showed that she expected a particular answer, that she would be surprised if it were not the one which followed the line of least resistance. It set Alexandra wavering. "Oh, Maggy," she said desperately, "if any one had told me a few months ago that I should ever have had to fight against that sort of temptation I should have died of shame! All last night I lay awake hating and despising myself, and all the time I was trying to find excuses for myself. I never thought love would come like this, taking one unawares, giving one no time to prepare for it. If I ever let myself think of it at all it was as of some fragrant and beautiful little plant that one could watch shoot and grow and bud—" "Instead of that it’s gone and done a kind of Mango trick like I saw at St. George’s Hall once—sprouted up into a full-grown tree while you waited, or rather while you didn’t wait. I daresay love might have come as you picture it, Lexie, if you’d stayed at home. Plants grow faster in a forcing-house; and the stage is, well—a hot-bed. If you’re really in love you might as well try and get away from it as from an express train when it’s bowled you over. After all, there’s just a chance you won’t get scrunched to pieces if you take it lying down." For the hundredth time in the last twelve hours Alexandra found herself wondering whether she dared follow Maggy’s example, and give herself to the man she loved. If she did, what would be the outcome of it? How long would such an affection, at least on the man’s part, last? Always those old set views of hers about life and morality rose up to haunt her indecision. Was she, after all, to recant, give up the fight, own herself beaten? "Poor old Lexie," murmured Maggy, taking her hand after a long silence. "Maggy,"—Alexandra held her eyes questioningly—"tell me honestly: do you in any way regret what you did? You know why I want to know." Maggy looked within herself.