"Not talk about them? And she just come back from a funeral! What else would _any one_ talk about? Not that _she_ said much, mind you. I only know there was a carriage-full of wreaths besides what was in the hearse. I’ll have to wait for the rest of it in the Sunday paper. Miss Hersey wouldn’t say what the corpse looked like." Mrs. Bell was wound up. Maggy knew that the only way to avoid a repetition of the ghoulish verbosity from which Alexandra must already have suffered was to get away. "Where is Miss Hersey?" she asked, beginning to mount the stairs. "Same room?" "No; a shunter from King’s Cross has that now. Such a nice-spoken young feller. Miss Hersey’s in the room with the cistern. I’ll bring you up a nice cup of tea directly, dear. I won’t put it down in her bill," she whispered in a burst of generosity. Upstairs in the room with the cistern the two girls ran into one another’s arms. But Maggy was not to escape a repetition of the scrutiny that Mrs. Bell had given her downstairs. After their embrace Alexandra drew back and looked at her with concern. "Maggy!" she exclaimed. "Have you been ill? There’s nothing of you." "Rubbish!" said Maggy. "It’s all over, anyway. I’m what they call _svelte_ in the society papers. I was all face and fatness before. Fred says I’m a lady-like size now. It’s the ’Willow’ corset. I’m in the _Ladies’ Field_ this week. Such a sketch! Just a chemise and— But don’t let’s talk about me. Lexie, I wanted to ask you something. Mrs. Lambert wrote to me two or three times, and I wrote to her. Do you know if she tore the letters up?" "I found them. Lord Chalfont asked me to look through a lot of her papers, and your letters were there. They were marked in pencil ’Destroy.’ I expect she meant to have done it, so I tore them up myself. There were three letters and a postcard. I couldn’t help seeing what was on the postcard—’All over, Maggy.’ What did you mean?" Under her paint and powder Maggy flushed a little. "Oh, that was—about my illness. Thank you for destroying the letters, Lexie. There was nothing in them I couldn’t have told you, but they were about things you’d rather not know." "Then you have been ill?" "Rest cure, my dear. Forget it." "I’m not hurt because you wrote to her about it instead of me." "You needn’t be. Was it nice being with her?" Alexandra told her all about the tour. While she talked Maggy began to notice a subtle change in her. Her views seemed to have grown broader. She appeared to be more tolerant of human failings. Her old, hard attitude toward them had disappeared. She showed this by the manner in which she spoke of Mrs. Lambert and Chalfont. It was entirely sympathetic. "Lexie, you’re different," declared Maggy in surprise when she had done. "You’ve come alive!" "I don’t feel quite the same," Alexandra admitted. "I believe I’m—changing. I’ve been trying to think things out, Maggy." There was puzzledom in her voice.