Maggy got into the car. She had been lunching with Woolf at his house. He always sent her to Sidey Street in his car, but never went there with her. He hated slums and mean streets. He had been born and bred in them and had had enough of them.

"Coming too?" she asked.

"Yes. I'm going to take you to see something I've just fixed up. I want to know what you think of it. It's a flat."

"Oh."

He got in beside her and set the car going. Maggy had been holding him at arm's length all the afternoon. He was getting a little tired of the pursuit and intended it should end. He could not associate Maggy with protracted virtue. If she persisted in this pose-for he thought it was a pose-he would lose interest in her. He had told her as much at lunch.

"Oh, rubbish!" Maggy had responded, munching at a pear that only a rich man could afford to buy out of season. "Courting's a change for you."

"It's too much trouble. In business I work hard. I know what I want and I go on till I get it. With women I don't want hard work. Besides, unripe fruit is sour. It's best when it's ready to fall."

"Then you've come under the wrong tree," she said cheekily.

But she knew that the fruit was trembling on its stem-ripe.

"About this flat," she said, when they were on their way, "are you thinking of moving?"

"No."

Woolf turned and looked at her intently. She could not face the searching in his eyes; she blushed and was angry with herself.

"I don't see what you want my opinion for, anyway," she said, to cover her confusion.

"It's funny, but I do."

He said no more. Maggy's thoughts occupied her for the rest of the drive. She sat back in her seat, out of contact with Woolf. When he was close to her, or his clothing touched her, a breathless sensation assailed her, sapping her strength.

The flat he took her to see was a furnished one in Bloomsbury, small but attractive in her eyes. It contained a bedroom, a bathroom and a sitting room. Meals were obtainable at a reasonable price in a restaurant attached to the building. The rooms had every appearance of being lived in. There were flowers in sitting room and bedroom, magazines, a box of chocolates: on the bedroom dressing-table was a brand-new silver toilette set and brushes. Among the pictures on the walls, framed in black and gold, were several studies of female figures in the nude. The electric lights were rose-shaded.

Maggy was entranced with the place. She forgot her defensive attitude and showed frank pleasure in all she saw. She fingered the silver brushes lovingly, smelt the flowers, munched a chocolate.

The white-tiled bathroom with its plated fittings appealed to her strongly.

"Hot and cold!" she murmured. "Not in bits but all at once. Scrummy!"

"What are you talking about?" said Woolf, amused.

"In Sidey Street we have a foot-bath and wash in bits," she explained frankly. "I've dreamt of baths like this. I've never had one."

She turned on the taps with the fascination of a child, and watched the water run.

"So you like it all?"

"I should just think I did!"

She perched on the edge of the bath, swinging a foot.

"You've really taken it?"

"For three years."

"Who's coming to it?"

"It's for a good girl."

"You mean for a bad girl," she pouted.

"She'll be good-to me."

"Well, I hope she'll like it."

He took her two hands. "So do I, Maggy. She's said so, anyway."

"Meaning me?"

He nodded.

"You've taken it on the chance that I'll come?"

"It's got to be completely furnished. If it wasn't you it would probably be some one I didn't care about half so much. But it's going to be you, isn't it, Maggy?"

"For three years!" Her voice trembled. "And after? What happens when the agreement's run out? Has the girl got to be like the flat-taken on by some one else? There was a play, wasn't there, a few years ago, called 'Love and What Then?' It didn't last long."

She got up and went back into the sitting room. Woolf followed her.

"Won't you trust me and come?"

"If I came I should come without trusting you. I'm not the kind that tiles herself in. I suppose I should let things rip."

"Well, it's yours for the taking. Only you've got to decide-now."

And suddenly Maggy's defenses broke down. She felt the frail bulwarks of her unsheltered girlhood crumbling around her.

"It wouldn't be for the bathroom or the bedroom or what you'd give me," she said huskily.

"Wouldn't it?"

His arms were about her.

"No," she whispered. "It's you."

Woolf gave her a little Yale key.

"Here it is. Let yourself in when you want to take possession."

He had tea sent up from the restaurant and they had it together in the cosy sitting room. Maggy was very subdued. She would go back to Sidey Street only to pack the few personal possessions she treasured. She hoped, was almost sure, Alexandra would be out. She dared not face her just yet.

"I'll bring you back after the show to-night," Woolf reminded her when they parted. "Don't forget I've given you the key."

"I've given you more than a key," said Maggy.