"No doubt," said Madame. "But it is a little late—"

The eyes of the foreigners, watching him, flattered Mr. May.

"I'm afraid it is," he said. "Yes. Popular taste is a mysterious thing. How do you feel, now? Do you feel they appreciate your work as much as they did?"

Madame watched him with her black eyes.

"No," she replied. "They don't. The pictures are driving us away. Perhaps we shall last for ten years more. And after that, we are finished."

"You think so," said Mr. May, looking serious.

"I am sure," she said, nodding sagely.

"But why is it?" said Mr. May, angry and petulant.

"Why is it? I don't know. I don't know. The pictures are cheap, and they are easy, and they cost the audience nothing, no feeling of the heart, no appreciation of the spirit, cost them nothing of these. And so they like them, and they don't like us, because they must feel the things we do, from the heart, and appreciate them from the spirit. There!"

"And they don't want to appreciate and to feel?" said Mr. May.

"No. They don't want. They want it all through the eye, and finished—so! Just curiosity, impertinent curiosity. That's all. In all countries, the same. And so—in ten years' time—no more Kishwegin at all."

"No. Then what future have you?" said Mr. May gloomily.

"I may be dead—who knows. If not, I shall have my little apartment in Lausanne, or in Bellizona, and I shall be a bourgeoise once more, and the good Catholic which I am."

"Which I am also," said Mr. May.

"So! Are you? An American Catholic?"

"Well—English—Irish—American."

"So!"

Mr. May never felt more gloomy in his life than he did that day. Where, finally, was he to rest his troubled head?

There was not all peace in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara group either. For Thursday, there was to be a change of program—"Kishwegin's Wedding—" (with the white prisoner, be if said)—was to take the place of the previous scene. Max of course was the director of the rehearsal. Madame would not come near the theatre when she herself was not to be acting.

Though very quiet and unobtrusive as a rule, Max could suddenly assume an air of hauteur and overbearing which was really very annoying. Geoffrey always fumed under it. But Ciccio it put into unholy, ungovernable tempers. For Max, suddenly, would reveal his contempt of the Eyetalian, as he called Ciccio, using the Cockney word.

"Bah! quelle tete de veau," said Max, suddenly contemptuous and angry because Ciccio, who really was slow at taking in the things said to him, had once more failed to understand.

"Comment?" queried Ciccio, in his slow, derisive way.

"Comment!" sneered Max, in echo. "What? What? Why what did I say? Calf's-head I said. Pig's-head, if that seems more suitable to you."

"To whom? To me or to you?" said Ciccio, sidling up.

"To you, lout of an Italian."

Max's colour was up, he held himself erect, his brown hair seemed to rise erect from his forehead, his blue eyes glared fierce.

"That is to say, to me, from an uncivilized German pig, ah? ah?"

All this in French. Alvina, as she sat at the piano, saw Max tall and blanched with anger; Ciccio with his neck stuck out, oblivious and convulsed with rage, stretching his neck at Max. All were in ordinary dress, but without coats, acting in their shirt-sleeves. Ciccio was clutching a property knife.

"Now! None of that! None of that!" said Mr. May, peremptory. But Ciccio, stretching forward taut and immobile with rage, was quite unconscious. His hand was fast on his stage knife.

"A dirty Eyetalian," said Max, in English, turning to Mr. May. "They understand nothing."

But the last word was smothered in Ciccio's spring and stab. Max half started on to his guard, received the blow on his collar-bone, near the pommel of the shoulder, reeled round on top of Mr. May, whilst Ciccio sprang like a cat down from the stage and bounded across the theatre and out of the door, leaving the knife rattling on the boards behind him. Max recovered and sprang like a demon, white with rage, straight out into the theatre after him.

"Stop—stop—!" cried Mr. May.

"Halte, Max! Max, Max, attends!" cried Louis and Geoffrey, as Louis sprang down after his friend. Thud went the boards again, with the spring of a man.

Alvina, who had been seated waiting at the piano below, started up and overturned her chair as Ciccio rushed past her. Now Max, white, with set blue eyes, was upon her.

"Don't—!" she cried, lifting her hand to stop his progress. He saw her, swerved, and hesitated, turned to leap over the seats and avoid her, when Louis caught him and flung his arms round him.

"Max—attends, ami! Laisse le partir. Max, tu sais que je t'aime. Tu le sais, ami. Tu le sais. Laisse le partir."

Max and Louis wrestled together in the gangway, Max looking down with hate on his friend. But Louis was determined also, he wrestled as fiercely as Max, and at last the latter began to yield. He was panting and beside himself. Louis still held him by the hand and by the arm.

"Let him go, brother, he isn't worth it. What does he understand, Max, dear brother, what does he understand? These fellows from the south, they are half children, half animal. They don't know what they are doing. Has he hurt you, dear friend? Has he hurt you? It was a dummy knife, but it was a heavy blow—the dog of an Italian. Let us see."

So gradually Max was brought to stand still. From under the edge of his waistcoat, on the shoulder, the blood was already staining the shirt.

"Are you cut, brother, brother?" said Louis. "Let us see."

Max now moved his arm with pain. They took off his waistcoat and pushed back his shirt. A nasty blackening wound, with the skin broken.

"If the bone isn't broken!" said Louis anxiously. "If the bone isn't broken! Lift thy arm, frere—lift. It hurts you—so—. No—no—it is not broken—no—the bone is not broken."

"There is no bone broken, I know," said Max.

"The animal. He hasn't done that, at least."

"Where do you imagine he's gone?" asked Mr. May.

The foreigners shrugged their shoulders, and paid no heed. There was no more rehearsal.

"We had best go home and speak to Madame," said Mr. May, who was very frightened for his evening performance.

They locked up the Endeavour. Alvina was thinking of Ciccio. He was gone in his shirt sleeves. She had taken his jacket and hat from the dressing-room at the back, and carried them under her rain-coat, which she had on her arm.

Madame was in a state of perturbation. She had heard some one come in at the back, and go upstairs, and go out again. Mrs. Rollings had told her it was the Italian, who had come in in his shirt-sleeves and gone out in his black coat and black hat, taking his bicycle, without saying a word. Poor Madame! She was struggling into her shoes, she had her hat on, when the others arrived.

"What is it?" she cried.

She heard a hurried explanation from Louis.

"Ah, the animal, the animal, he wasn't worth all my pains!" cried poor Madame, sitting with one shoe off and one shoe on. "Why, Max, why didst thou not remain man enough to control that insulting mountain temper of thine. Have I not said, and said, and said that in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara there was but one nation, the Red Indian, and but one tribe, the tribe of Kishwe? And now thou hast called him a dirty Italian, or a dog of an Italian, and he has behaved like an animal. Too much, too much of an animal, too little esprit. But thou, Max, art almost as bad. Thy temper is a devil's, which maybe is worse than an animal's. Ah, this Woodhouse, a curse is on it, I know it is. Would we were away from it. Will the week never pass? We shall have to find Ciccio. Without him the company is ruined—until I get a substitute. I must get a substitute. And how?—and where?—in this country?—tell me that. I am tired of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. There is no true tribe of Kishwe—no, never. I have had enough of Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Let us break up, let us part, mes braves, let us say adieu here in this funeste Woodhouse."

"Oh, Madame, dear Madame," said Louis, "let us hope. Let us swear a closer fidelity, dear Madame, our Kishwegin. Let us never part. Max, thou dost not want to part, brother, well-loved? Thou dost not want to part, brother whom I love? And thou, Geoffrey, thou—"

Madame burst into tears, Louis wept too, even Max turned aside his face, with tears. Alvina stole out of the room, followed by Mr. May.

In a while Madame came out to them.

"Oh," she said. "You have not gone away! We are wondering which way Ciccio will have gone, on to Knarborough or to Marchay. Geoffrey will go on his bicycle to find him. But shall it be to Knarborough or to Marchay?"

"Ask the policeman in the market-place," said Alvina. "He's sure to have noticed him, because Ciccio's yellow bicycle is so uncommon."

Mr. May tripped out on this errand, while the others discussed among themselves where Ciccio might be.

Mr. May returned, and said that Ciccio had ridden off down the Knarborough Road. It was raining slightly.

"Ah!" said Madame. "And now how to find him, in that great town. I am afraid he will leave us without pity."

"Surely he will want to speak to Geoffrey before he goes," said Louis. "They were always good friends."

They all looked at Geoffrey. He shrugged his broad shoulders.

"Always good friends," he said. "Yes. He will perhaps wait for me at his cousin's in Battersea. In Knarborough, I don't know."

"How much money had he?" asked Mr. May.

Madame spread her hands and lifted her shoulders.

"Who knows?" she said.

"These Italians," said Louis, turning to Mr. May. "They have always money. In another country, they will not spend one sou if they can help. They are like this—" And he made the Neapolitan gesture drawing in the air with his fingers.

"But would he abandon you all without a word?" cried Mr. May.

"Yes! Yes!" said Madame, with a sort of stoic pathos. "He would. He alone would do such a thing. But he would do it."

"And what point would he make for?"

"What point? You mean where would he go? To Battersea, no doubt, to his cousin—and then to Italy, if he thinks he has saved enough money to buy land, or whatever it is."

"And so good-bye to him," said Mr. May bitterly.

"Geoffrey ought to know," said Madame, looking at Geoffrey.

Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders, and would not give his comrade away.

"No," he said. "I don't know. He will leave a message at Battersea, I know. But I don't know if he will go to Italy."

"And you don't know where to find him in Knarborough?" asked Mr. May, sharply, very much on the spot.

"No—I don't. Perhaps at the station he will go by train to London." It was evident Geoffrey was not going to help Mr. May.

"Alors!" said Madame, cutting through this futility. "Go thou to Knarborough, Geoffrey, and see—and be back at the theatre for work. Go now. And if thou can'st find him, bring him again to us. Tell him to come out of kindness to me. Tell him."

And she waved the young man away. He departed on his nine mile ride through the rain to Knarborough.

"They know," said Madame. "They know each other's places. It is a little more than a year since we came to Knarborough. But they will remember."

Geoffrey rode swiftly as possible through the mud. He did not care very much whether he found his friend or not. He liked the Italian, but he never looked on him as a permanency. He knew Ciccio was dissatisfied, and wanted a change. He knew that Italy was pulling him away from the troupe, with which he had been associated now for three years or more. And the Swiss from Martigny knew that the Neapolitan would go, breaking all ties, one day suddenly back to Italy. It was so, and Geoffrey was philosophical about it.

He rode into town, and the first thing he did was to seek out the music-hall artistes at their lodgings. He knew a good many of them. They gave him a welcome and a whiskey—but none of them had seen Ciccio. They sent him off to other artistes, other lodging-houses. He went the round of associates known and unknown, of lodgings strange and familiar, of third-rate possible public houses. Then he went to the Italians down in the Marsh—he knew these people always ask for one another. And then, hurrying, he dashed to the Midland Station, and then to the Great Central Station, asking the porters on the London departure platform if they had seen his pal, a man with a yellow bicycle, and a black bicycle cape. All to no purpose.

Geoffrey hurriedly lit his lamp and swung off in the dark back to Woodhouse. He was a powerfully built, imperturbable fellow. He pressed slowly uphill through the streets, then ran downhill into the darkness of the industrial country. He had continually to cross the new tram-lines, which were awkward, and he had occasionally to dodge the brilliantly-illuminated tram-cars which threaded their way across-country through so much darkness. All the time it rained, and his back wheel slipped under him, in the mud and on the new tram-track.

As he pressed in the long darkness that lay between Slaters Mill and Durbeyhouses, he saw a light ahead—another cyclist. He moved to his side of the road. The light approached very fast. It was a strong acetylene flare. He watched it. A flash and a splash and he saw the humped back of what was probably Ciccio going by at a great pace on the low racing machine.

"Hi Cic'—! Ciccio!" he yelled, dropping off his own bicycle.

"Ha-er-er!" he heard the answering shout, unmistakably Italian, way down the darkness.

He turned—saw the other cyclist had stopped. The flare swung round, and Ciccio softly rode up. He dropped off beside Geoffrey.

"Toi!" said Ciccio.

"He! Ou vas-tu?"

"He!" ejaculated Ciccio.

Their conversation consisted a good deal in noises variously ejaculated.

"Coming back?" asked Geoffrey.

"Where've you been?" retorted Ciccio.

"Knarborough—looking for thee. Where have you—?"

"Buckled my front wheel at Durbeyhouses."

"Come off?"

"He!"

"Hurt?"

"Nothing."

"Max is all right."

"Merde!"

"Come on, come back with me."

"Nay." Ciccio shook his head.

"Madame's crying. Wants thee to come back."

Ciccio shook his head.

"Come on, Cic'—" said Geoffrey.

Ciccio shook his head.

"Never?" said Geoffrey.

"Basta—had enough," said Ciccio, with an invisible grimace.

"Come for a bit, and we'll clear together."

Ciccio again shook his head.

"What, is it adieu?"

Ciccio did not speak.

"Don't go, comrade," said Geoffrey.

"Faut," said Ciccio, slightly derisive.

"Eh alors! I'd like to come with thee. What?"

"Where?"

"Doesn't matter. Thou'rt going to Italy?"

"Who knows!—seems so."

"I'd like to go back."

"Eh alors!" Ciccio half veered round.

"Wait for me a few days," said Geoffrey.

"Where?"

"See you tomorrow in Knarborough. Go to Mrs. Pym's, 6 Hampden Street. Gittiventi is there. Right, eh?"

"I'll think about it."

"Eleven o'clock, eh?"

"I'll think about it."

"Friends ever—Ciccio—eh?" Geoffrey held out his hand.

Ciccio slowly took it. The two men leaned to each other and kissed farewell, on either cheek.

"Tomorrow, Cic'—"

"Au revoir, Gigi."

Ciccio dropped on to his bicycle and was gone in a breath. Geoffrey waited a moment for a tram which was rushing brilliantly up to him in the rain. Then he mounted and rode in the opposite direction. He went straight down to Lumley, and Madame had to remain on tenterhooks till ten o'clock.

She heard the news, and said:

"Tomorrow I go to fetch him." And with this she went to bed.

In the morning she was up betimes, sending a note to Alvina. Alvina appeared at nine o'clock.

"You will come with me?" said Madame. "Come. Together we will go to Knarborough and bring back the naughty Ciccio. Come with me, because I haven't all my strength. Yes, you will? Good! Good! Let us tell the young men, and we will go now, on the tram-car."

"But I am not properly dressed," said Alvina.

"Who will see?" said Madame. "Come, let us go."

They told Geoffrey they would meet him at the corner of Hampden Street at five minutes to eleven.

"You see," said Madame to Alvina, "they are very funny, these young men, particularly Italians. You must never let them think you have caught them. Perhaps he will not let us see him—who knows? Perhaps he will go off to Italy all the same."

They sat in the bumping tram-car, a long and wearying journey. And then they tramped the dreary, hideous streets of the manufacturing town. At the corner of the street they waited for Geoffrey, who rode up muddily on his bicycle.

"Ask Ciccio to come out to us, and we will go and drink coffee at the Geisha Restaurant—or tea or something," said Madame.

Again the two women waited wearily at the street-end. At last Geoffrey returned, shaking his head.

"He won't come?" cried Madame.

"No."

"He says he is going back to Italy?"

"To London."

"It is the same. You can never trust them. Is he quite obstinate?"

Geoffrey lifted his shoulders. Madame could see the beginnings of defection in him too. And she was tired and dispirited.

"We shall have to finish the Natcha-Kee-Tawara, that is all," she said fretfully.

Geoffrey watched her stolidly, impassively.

"Dost thou want to go with him?" she asked suddenly.

Geoffrey smiled sheepishly, and his colour deepened. But he did not speak.

"Go then—" she said. "Go then! Go with him! But for the sake of my honour, finish this week at Woodhouse. Can I make Miss Houghton's father lose these two nights? Where is your shame? Finish this week and then go, go—But finish this week. Tell Francesco that. I have finished with him. But let him finish this engagement. Don't put me to shame, don't destroy my honour, and the honour of the Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Tell him that."

Geoffrey turned again into the house. Madame, in her chic little black hat and spotted veil, and her trim black coat-and-skirt, stood there at the street-corner staring before her, shivering a little with cold, but saying no word of any sort.

Again Geoffrey appeared out of the doorway. His face was impassive.

"He says he doesn't want," he said.

"Ah!" she cried suddenly in French, "the ungrateful, the animal! He shall suffer. See if he shall not suffer. The low canaille, without faith or feeling. My Max, thou wert right. Ah, such canaille should be beaten, as dogs are beaten, till they follow at heel. Will no one beat him for me, no one? Yes. Go back. Tell him before he leaves England he shall feel the hand of Kishwegin, and it shall be heavier than the Black Hand. Tell him that, the coward, that causes a woman's word to be broken against her will. Ah, canaille, canaille! Neither faith nor feeling, neither faith nor feeling. Trust them not, dogs of the south." She took a few agitated steps down the pavement. Then she raised her veil to wipe away her tears of anger and bitter disappointment.

"Wait a bit," said Alvina. "I'll go." She was touched.

"No. Don't you!" cried Madame.

"Yes I will," she said. The light of battle was in her eyes. "You'll come with me to the door," she said to Geoffrey.

Geoffrey started obediently, and led the way up a long narrow stair, covered with yellow-and-brown oil-cloth, rather worn, on to the top of the house.

"Ciccio," he said, outside the door.

"Oui!" came the curly voice of Ciccio.

Geoffrey opened the door. Ciccio was sitting on a narrow bed, in a rather poor attic, under the steep slope of the roof.

"Don't come in," said Alvina to Geoffrey, looking over her shoulder at him as she entered. Then she closed the door behind her, and stood with her back to it, facing the Italian. He sat loose on the bed, a cigarette between his fingers, dropping ash on the bare boards between his feet. He looked up curiously at Alvina. She stood watching him with wide, bright blue eyes, smiling slightly, and saying nothing. He looked up at her steadily, on his guard, from under his long black lashes.

"Won't you come?" she said, smiling and looking into his eyes. He flicked off the ash of his cigarette with his little finger. She wondered why he wore the nail of his little finger so long, so very long. Still she smiled at him, and still he gave no sign.

"Do come!" she urged, never taking her eyes from him.

He made not the slightest movement, but sat with his hands dropped between his knees, watching her, the cigarette wavering up its blue thread of smoke.

"Won't you?" she said, as she stood with her back to the door. "Won't you come?" She smiled strangely and vividly.

Suddenly she took a pace forward, stooped, watching his face as if timidly, caught his brown hand in her own and lifted it towards herself. His hand started, dropped the cigarette, but was not withdrawn.

"You will come, won't you?" she said, smiling gently into his strange, watchful yellow eyes, that looked fixedly into hers, the dark pupil opening round and softening. She smiled into his softening round eyes, the eyes of some animal which stares in one of its silent, gentler moments. And suddenly she kissed his hand, kissed it twice, quickly, on the fingers and the back. He wore a silver ring. Even as she kissed his fingers with her lips, the silver ring seemed to her a symbol of his subjection, inferiority. She drew his hand slightly. And he rose to his feet.

She turned round and took the door-handle, still holding his fingers in her left hand.

"You are coming, aren't you?" she said, looking over her shoulder into his eyes. And taking consent from his unchanging eyes, she let go his hand and slightly opened the door. He turned slowly, and taking his coat from a nail, slung it over his shoulders and drew it on. Then he picked up his hat, and put his foot on his half-smoked cigarette, which lay smoking still. He followed her out of the room, walking with his head rather forward, in the half loutish, sensual-subjected way of the Italians.

As they entered the street, they saw the trim, French figure of Madame standing alone, as if abandoned. Her face was very white under her spotted veil, her eyes very black. She watched Ciccio following behind Alvina in his dark, hangdog fashion, and she did not move a muscle until he came to a standstill in front of her. She was watching his face.

"Te voila donc!" she said, without expression. "Allons boire un cafe, he? Let us go and drink some coffee." She had now put an inflection of tenderness into her voice. But her eyes were black with anger. Ciccio smiled slowly, the slow, fine, stupid smile, and turned to walk alongside.

Madame said nothing as they went. Geoffrey passed on his bicycle, calling out that he would go straight to Woodhouse.

When the three sat with their cups of coffee, Madame pushed up her veil just above her eyes, so that it was a black band above her brows. Her face was pale and full like a child's, but almost stonily expressionless, her eyes were black and inscrutable. She watched both Ciccio and Alvina with her black, inscrutable looks.

"Would you like also biscuits with your coffee, the two of you?" she said, with an amiable intonation which her strange black looks belied.

"Yes," said Alvina. She was a little flushed, as if defiant, while Ciccio sat sheepishly, turning aside his ducked head, the slow, stupid, yet fine smile on his lips.

"And no more trouble with Max, hein?—you Ciccio?" said Madame, still with the amiable intonation and the same black, watching eyes. "No more of these stupid scenes, hein? What? Do you answer me."

"No more from me," he said, looking up at her with a narrow, cat-like look in his derisive eyes.

"Ho? No? No more? Good then! It is good! We are glad, aren't we, Miss Houghton, that Ciccio has come back and there are to be no more rows?—hein?—aren't we?"

"I'm awfully glad," said Alvina.

"Awfully glad—yes—awfully glad! You hear, you Ciccio. And you remember another time. What? Don't you? He?"

He looked up at her, the slow, derisive smile curling his lips.

"Sure," he said slowly, with subtle intonation.

"Yes. Good! Well then! Well then! We are all friends. We are all friends, aren't we, all the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras? He? What you think? What you say?"

"Yes," said Ciccio, again looking up at her with his yellow, glinting eyes.

"All right! All right then! It is all right—forgotten—" Madame sounded quite frank and restored. But the sullen watchfulness in her eyes, and the narrowed look in Ciccio's, as he glanced at her, showed another state behind the obviousness of the words. "And Miss Houghton is one of us! Yes? She has united us once more, and so she has become one of us." Madame smiled strangely from her blank, round white face.

"I should love to be one of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras," said Alvina.

"Yes—well—why not? Why not become one? Why not? What you say, Ciccio? You can play the piano, perhaps do other things. Perhaps better than Kishwegin. What you say, Ciccio, should she not join us? Is she not one of us?"

He smiled and showed his teeth but did not answer.

"Well, what is it? Say then? Shall she not?"

"Yes," said Ciccio, unwilling to commit himself.

"Yes, so I say! So I say. Quite a good idea! We will think of it, and speak perhaps to your father, and you shall come! Yes."

So the two women returned to Woodhouse by the tram-car, while Ciccio rode home on his bicycle. It was surprising how little Madame and Alvina found to say to one another.

Madame effected the reunion of her troupe, and all seemed pretty much as before. She had decided to dance the next night, the Saturday night. On Sunday the party would leave for Warsall, about thirty miles away, to fulfil their next engagement.

That evening Ciccio, whenever he had a moment to spare, watched Alvina. She knew it. But she could not make out what his watching meant. In the same way he might have watched a serpent, had he found one gliding in the theatre. He looked at her sideways, furtively, but persistently. And yet he did not want to meet her glance. He avoided her, and watched her. As she saw him standing, in his negligent, muscular, slouching fashion, with his head dropped forward, and his eyes sideways, sometimes she disliked him. But there was a sort of finesse about his face. His skin was delicately tawny, and slightly lustrous. The eyes were set in so dark, that one expected them to be black and flashing. And then one met the yellow pupils, sulphureous and remote. It was like meeting a lion. His long, fine nose, his rather long, rounded chin and curling lips seemed refined through ages of forgotten culture. He was waiting: silent there, with something muscular and remote about his very droop, he was waiting. What for? Alvina could not guess. She wanted to meet his eye, to have an open understanding with him. But he would not. When she went up to talk to him, he answered in his stupid fashion, with a smile of the mouth and no change of the eyes, saying nothing at all. Obstinately he held away from her. When he was in his war-paint, for one moment she hated his muscular, handsome, downward-drooping torso: so stupid and full. The fine sharp uprightness of Max seemed much finer, clearer, more manly. Ciccio's velvety, suave heaviness, the very heave of his muscles, so full and softly powerful, sickened her.

She flashed away angrily on her piano. Madame, who was dancing Kishwegin on the last evening, cast sharp glances at her. Alvina had avoided Madame as Ciccio had avoided Alvina—elusive and yet conscious, a distance, and yet a connection.

Madame danced beautifully. No denying it, she was an artist. She became something quite different: fresh, virginal, pristine, a magic creature flickering there. She was infinitely delicate and attractive. Her braves became glamorous and heroic at once, and magically she cast her spell over them. It was all very well for Alvina to bang the piano crossly. She could not put out the glow which surrounded Kishwegin and her troupe. Ciccio was handsome now: without war-paint, and roused, fearless and at the same time suggestive, a dark, mysterious glamour on his face, passionate and remote. A stranger—and so beautiful. Alvina flashed at the piano, almost in tears. She hated his beauty. It shut her apart. She had nothing to do with it.

Madame, with her long dark hair hanging in finely-brushed tresses, her cheek burning under its dusky stain, was another creature. How soft she was on her feet. How humble and remote she seemed, as across a chasm from the men. How submissive she was, with an eternity of inaccessible submission. Her hovering dance round the dead bear was exquisite: her dark, secretive curiosity, her admiration of the massive, male strength of the creature, her quivers of triumph over the dead beast, her cruel exultation, and her fear that he was not really dead. It was a lovely sight, suggesting the world's morning, before Eve had bitten any white-fleshed apple, whilst she was still dusky, dark-eyed, and still. And then her stealthy sympathy with the white prisoner! Now indeed she was the dusky Eve tempted into knowledge. Her fascination was ruthless. She kneeled by the dead brave, her husband, as she had knelt by the bear: in fear and admiration and doubt and exultation. She gave him the least little push with her foot. Dead meat like the bear! And a flash of delight went over her, that changed into a sob of mortal anguish. And then, flickering, wicked, doubtful, she watched Ciccio wrestling with the bear.

She was the clue to all the action, was Kishwegin. And her dark braves seemed to become darker, more secret, malevolent, burning with a cruel fire, and at the same time wistful, knowing their end. Ciccio laughed in a strange way, as he wrestled with the bear, as he had never laughed on the previous evenings. The sound went out into the audience, a soft, malevolent, derisive sound. And when the bear was supposed to have crushed him, and he was to have fallen, he reeled out of the bear's arms and said to Madame, in his derisive voice:

"Vivo sempre, Madame." And then he fell.

Madame stopped as if shot, hearing his words: "I am still alive, Madame." She remained suspended motionless, suddenly wilted. Then all at once her hand went to her mouth with a scream:

"The Bear!"

So the scene concluded itself. But instead of the tender, half-wistful triumph of Kishwegin, a triumph electric as it should have been when she took the white man's hand and kissed it, there was a doubt, a hesitancy, a nullity, and Max did not quite know what to do.

After the performance, neither Madame nor Max dared say anything to Ciccio about his innovation into the play. Louis felt he had to speak—it was left to him.

"I say, Cic'—" he said, "why did you change the scene? It might have spoiled everything if Madame wasn't such a genius. Why did you say that?"

"Why," said Ciccio, answering Louis' French in Italian, "I am tired of being dead, you see."

Madame and Max heard in silence.

When Alvina had played God Save the King she went round behind the stage. But Ciccio and Geoffrey had already packed up the property, and left. Madame was talking to James Houghton. Louis and Max were busy together. Mr. May came to Alvina.

"Well," he said. "That closes another week. I think we've done very well, in face of difficulties, don't you?"

"Wonderfully," she said.

But poor Mr. May spoke and looked pathetically. He seemed to feel forlorn. Alvina was not attending to him. Her eye was roving. She took no notice of him.

Madame came up.

"Well, Miss Houghton," she said, "time to say good-bye, I suppose."

"How do you feel after dancing?" asked Alvina.

"Well—not so strong as usual—but not so bad, you know. I shall be all right—thanks to you. I think your father is more ill than I. To me he looks very ill."

"Father wears himself away," said Alvina.

"Yes, and when we are no longer young, there is not so much to wear. Well, I must thank you once more—"

"What time do you leave in the morning?"

"By the train at half-past ten. If it doesn't rain, the young men will cycle—perhaps all of them. Then they will go when they like—"

"I will come round to say good-bye—" said Alvina.

"Oh no—don't disturb yourself—"

"Yes, I want to take home the things—the kettle for the bronchitis, and those things—"

"Oh thank you very much—but don't trouble yourself. I will send Ciccio with them—or one of the others—"

"I should like to say good-bye to you all," persisted Alvina.

Madame glanced round at Max and Louis.

"Are we not all here? No. The two have gone. No! Well! Well what time will you come?"

"About nine?"

"Very well, and I leave at ten. Very well. Then au revoir till the morning. Good-night."

"Good-night," said Alvina. Her colour was rather flushed.

She walked up with Mr. May, and hardly noticed he was there. After supper, when James Houghton had gone up to count his pennies, Alvina said to Miss Pinnegar:

"Don't you think father looks rather seedy, Miss Pinnegar?"

"I've been thinking so a long time," said Miss Pinnegar tartly.

"What do you think he ought to do?"

"He's killing himself down there, in all weathers and freezing in that box-office, and then the bad atmosphere. He's killing himself, that's all."

"What can we do?"

"Nothing so long as there's that place down there. Nothing at all."

Alvina thought so too. So she went to bed.

She was up in time, and watching the clock. It was a grey morning, but not raining. At five minutes to nine, she hurried off to Mrs. Rollings. In the back yard the bicycles were out, glittering and muddy according to their owners. Ciccio was crouching mending a tire, crouching balanced on his toes, near the earth. He turned like a quick-eared animal glancing up as she approached, but did not rise.

"Are you getting ready to go?" she said, looking down at him. He screwed his head round to her unwillingly, upside down, his chin tilted up at her. She did not know him thus inverted. Her eyes rested on his face, puzzled. His chin seemed so large, aggressive. He was a little bit repellent and brutal, inverted. Yet she continued:

"Would you help me to carry back the things we brought for Madame?"

He rose to his feet, but did not look at her. He was wearing broken cycling shoes. He stood looking at his bicycle tube.

"Not just yet," she said. "I want to say good-bye to Madame. Will you come in half an hour?"

"Yes, I will come," he said, still watching his bicycle tube, which sprawled nakedly on the floor. The forward drop of his head was curiously beautiful to her, the straight, powerful nape of the neck, the delicate shape of the back of the head, the black hair. The way the neck sprang from the strong, loose shoulders was beautiful. There was something mindless but intent about the forward reach of his head. His face seemed colourless, neutral-tinted and expressionless.

She went indoors. The young men were moving about making preparations.

"Come upstairs, Miss Houghton!" called Madame's voice from above. Alvina mounted, to find Madame packing.

"It is an uneasy moment, when we are busy to move," said Madame, looking up at Alvina as if she were a stranger.

"I'm afraid I'm in the way. But I won't stay a minute."

"Oh, it is all right. Here are the things you brought—" Madame indicated a little pile—"and thank you very much, very much. I feel you saved my life. And now let me give you one little token of my gratitude. It is not much, because we are not millionaires in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara. Just a little remembrance of our troublesome visit to Woodhouse."

She presented Alvina with a pair of exquisite bead moccasins, woven in a weird, lovely pattern, with soft deerskin soles and sides.

"They belong to Kishwegin, so it is Kishwegin who gives them to you, because she is grateful to you for saving her life, or at least from a long illness."

"Oh—but I don't want to take them—" said Alvina.

"You don't like them? Why?"

"I think they're lovely, lovely! But I don't want to take them from you—"

"If I give them, you do not take them from me. You receive them. He?" And Madame pressed back the slippers, opening her plump jewelled hands in a gesture of finality.

"But I don't like to take these," said Alvina. "I feel they belong to Natcha-Kee-Tawara. And I don't want to rob Natcha-Kee-Tawara, do I? Do take them back."

"No, I have given them. You cannot rob Natcha-Kee-Tawara in taking a pair of shoes—impossible!"

"And I'm sure they are much too small for me."

"Ha!" exclaimed Madame. "It is that! Try."

"I know they are," said Alvina, laughing confusedly.

She sat down and took off her own shoe. The moccasin was a little too short—just a little. But it was charming on the foot, charming.

"Yes," said Madame. "It is too short. Very well. I must find you something else."

"Please don't," said Alvina. "Please don't find me anything. I don't want anything. Please!"

"What?" said Madame, eyeing her closely. "You don't want? Why? You don't want anything from Natcha-Kee-Tawara, or from Kishwegin? He? From which?"

"Don't give me anything, please," said Alvina.

"All right! All right then. I won't. I won't give you anything. I can't give you anything you want from Natcha-Kee-Tawara."

And Madame busied herself again with the packing.

"I'm awfully sorry you are going," said Alvina.

"Sorry? Why? Yes, so am I sorry we shan't see you any more. Yes, so I am. But perhaps we shall see you another time—he? I shall send you a post-card. Perhaps I shall send one of the young men on his bicycle, to bring you something which I shall buy for you. Yes? Shall I?"

"Oh! I should be awfully glad—but don't buy—" Alvina checked herself in time. "Don't buy anything. Send me a little thing from Natcha-Kee-Tawara. I love the slippers—"

"But they are too small," said Madame, who had been watching her with black eyes that read every motive. Madame too had her avaricious side, and was glad to get back the slippers. "Very well—very well, I will do that. I will send you some small thing from Natcha-Kee-Tawara, and one of the young men shall bring it. Perhaps Ciccio? He?"

"Thank you so much," said Alvina, holding out her hand. "Good-bye. I'm so sorry you're going."

"Well—well! We are not going so very far. Not so very far. Perhaps we shall see each other another day. It may be. Good-bye!"

Madame took Alvina's hand, and smiled at her winsomely all at once, kindly, from her inscrutable black eyes. A sudden unusual kindness. Alvina flushed with surprise and a desire to cry.

"Yes. I am sorry you are not with Natcha-Kee-Tawara. But we shall see. Good-bye. I shall do my packing."

Alvina carried down the things she had to remove. Then she went to say good-bye to the young men, who were in various stages of their toilet. Max alone was quite presentable.

Ciccio was just putting on the outer cover of his front tire. She watched his brown thumbs press it into place. He was quick and sure, much more capable, and even masterful, than you would have supposed, seeing his tawny Mediterranean hands. He spun the wheel round, patting it lightly.

"Is it finished?"

"Yes, I think." He reached his pump and blew up the tire. She watched his softly-applied force. What physical, muscular force there was in him. Then he swung round the bicycle, and stood it again on its wheels. After which he quickly folded his tools.

"Will you come now?" she said.

He turned, rubbing his hands together, and drying them on an old cloth. He went into the house, pulled on his coat and his cap, and picked up the things from the table.

"Where are you going?" Max asked.

Ciccio jerked his head towards Alvina.

"Oh, allow me to carry them, Miss Houghton. He is not fit—" said Max.

True, Ciccio had no collar on, and his shoes were burst.

"I don't mind," said Alvina hastily. "He knows where they go. He brought them before."

"But I will carry them. I am dressed. Allow me—" and he began to take the things. "You get dressed, Ciccio."

Ciccio looked at Alvina.

"Do you want?" he said, as if waiting for orders.

"Do let Ciccio take them," said Alvina to Max. "Thank you ever so much. But let him take them."

So Alvina marched off through the Sunday morning streets, with the Italian, who was down at heel and encumbered with an armful of sick-room apparatus. She did not know what to say, and he said nothing.

"We will go in this way," she said, suddenly opening the hall door. She had unlocked it before she went out, for that entrance was hardly ever used. So she showed the Italian into the sombre drawing-room, with its high black bookshelves with rows and rows of calf-bound volumes, its old red and flowered carpet, its grand piano littered with music. Ciccio put down the things as she directed, and stood with his cap in his hands, looking aside.

"Thank you so much," she said, lingering.

He curled his lips in a faint deprecatory smile.

"Nothing," he murmured.

His eye had wandered uncomfortably up to a portrait on the wall.

"That was my mother," said Alvina.

He glanced down at her, but did not answer.

"I am so sorry you're going away," she said nervously. She stood looking up at him with wide blue eyes.

The faint smile grew on the lower part of his face, which he kept averted. Then he looked at her.

"We have to move," he said, with his eyes watching her reservedly, his mouth twisting with a half-bashful smile.

"Do you like continually going away?" she said, her wide blue eyes fixed on his face.

He nodded slightly.

"We have to do it. I like it."

What he said meant nothing to him. He now watched her fixedly, with a slightly mocking look, and a reserve he would not relinquish.

"Do you think I shall ever see you again?" she said.

"Should you like—?" he answered, with a sly smile and a faint shrug.

"I should like awfully—" a flush grew on her cheek. She heard Miss Pinnegar's scarcely audible step approaching.

He nodded at her slightly, watching her fixedly, turning up the corners of his eyes slyly, his nose seeming slyly to sharpen.

"All right. Next week, eh? In the morning?"

"Do!" cried Alvina, as Miss Pinnegar came through the door. He glanced quickly over his shoulder.

"Oh!" cried Miss Pinnegar. "I couldn't imagine who it was." She eyed the young fellow sharply.

"Couldn't you?" said Alvina. "We brought back these things."

"Oh yes. Well—you'd better come into the other room, to the fire," said Miss Pinnegar.

"I shall go along. Good-bye!" said Ciccio, and with a slight bow to Alvina, and a still slighter to Miss Pinnegar, he was out of the room and out of the front door, as if turning tail.

"I suppose they're going this morning," said Miss Pinnegar.



CHAPTER IX

ALVINA BECOMES ALLAYE

Alvina wept when the Natchas had gone. She loved them so much, she wanted to be with them. Even Ciccio she regarded as only one of the Natchas. She looked forward to his coming as to a visit from the troupe.

How dull the theatre was without them! She was tired of the Endeavour. She wished it did not exist. The rehearsal on the Monday morning bored her terribly. Her father was nervous and irritable. The previous week had tried him sorely. He had worked himself into a state of nervous apprehension such as nothing would have justified, unless perhaps, if the wooden walls of the Endeavour had burnt to the ground, with James inside victimized like another Samson. He had developed a nervous horror of all artistes. He did not feel safe for one single moment whilst he depended on a single one of them.

"We shall have to convert into all pictures," he said in a nervous fever to Mr. May. "Don't make any more engagements after the end of next month."

"Really!" said Mr. May. "Really! Have you quite decided?"

"Yes quite! Yes quite!" James fluttered. "I have written about a new machine, and the supply of films from Chanticlers."

"Really!" said Mr. May. "Oh well then, in that case—" But he was filled with dismay and chagrin.

"Of cauce," he said later to Alvina, "I can't possibly stop on if we are nothing but a picture show!" And he arched his blanched and dismal eyelids with ghastly finality.

"Why?" cried Alvina.

"Oh—why!" He was rather ironic. "Well, it's not my line at all. I'm not a film-operator!" And he put his head on one side with a grimace of contempt and superiority.

"But you are, as well," said Alvina.

"Yes, as well. But not only! You may wash the dishes in the scullery. But you're not only the char, are you?"

"But is it the same?" cried Alvina.

"Of cauce!" cried Mr. May. "Of cauce it's the same."

Alvina laughed, a little heartlessly, into his pallid, stricken eyes.

"But what will you do?" she asked.

"I shall have to look for something else," said the injured but dauntless little man. "There's nothing else, is there?"

"Wouldn't you stay on?" she asked.

"I wouldn't think of it. I wouldn't think of it." He turtled like an injured pigeon.

"Well," she said, looking laconically into his face: "It's between you and father—"

"Of cauce!" he said. "Naturally! Where else—!" But his tone was a little spiteful, as if he had rested his last hopes on Alvina.

Alvina went away. She mentioned the coming change to Miss Pinnegar.

"Well," said Miss Pinnegar, judicious but aloof, "it's a move in the right direction. But I doubt if it'll do any good."

"Do you?" said Alvina. "Why?"

"I don't believe in the place, and I never did," declared Miss Pinnegar. "I don't believe any good will come of it."

"But why?" persisted Alvina. "What makes you feel so sure about it?"

"I don't know. But that's how I feel. And I have from the first. It was wrong from the first. It was wrong to begin it."

"But why?" insisted Alvina, laughing.

"Your father had no business to be led into it. He'd no business to touch this show business. It isn't like him. It doesn't belong to him. He's gone against his own nature and his own life."

"Oh but," said Alvina, "father was a showman even in the shop. He always was. Mother said he was like a showman in a booth."

Miss Pinnegar was taken aback.

"Well!" she said sharply. "If that's what you've seen in him!"—there was a pause. "And in that case," she continued tartly, "I think some of the showman has come out in his daughter! or show-woman!—which doesn't improve it, to my idea."

"Why is it any worse?" said Alvina. "I enjoy it—and so does father."

"No," cried Miss Pinnegar. "There you're wrong! There you make a mistake. It's all against his better nature."

"Really!" said Alvina, in surprise. "What a new idea! But which is father's better nature?"

"You may not know it," said Miss Pinnegar coldly, "and if so, I can never tell you. But that doesn't alter it." She lapsed into dead silence for a moment. Then suddenly she broke out, vicious and cold: "He'll go on till he's killed himself, and then he'll know."

The little adverb then came whistling across the space like a bullet. It made Alvina pause. Was her father going to die? She reflected. Well, all men must die.

She forgot the question in others that occupied her. First, could she bear it, when the Endeavour was turned into another cheap and nasty film-shop? The strange figures of the artistes passing under her observation had really entertained her, week by week. Some weeks they had bored her, some weeks she had detested them, but there was always a chance in the coming week. Think of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras!

She thought too much of the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. She knew it. And she tried to force her mind to the contemplation of the new state of things, when she banged at the piano to a set of dithering and boring pictures. There would be her father, herself, and Mr. May—or a new operator, a new manager. The new manager!—she thought of him for a moment—and thought of the mechanical factory-faced persons who managed Wright's and the Woodhouse Empire.

But her mind fell away from this barren study. She was obsessed by the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. They seemed to have fascinated her. Which of them it was, or what it was that had cast the spell over her, she did not know. But she was as if hypnotized. She longed to be with them. Her soul gravitated towards them all the time.

Monday passed, and Ciccio did not come: Tuesday passed: and Wednesday. In her soul she was sceptical of their keeping their promise—either Madame or Ciccio. Why should they keep their promise? She knew what these nomadic artistes were. And her soul was stubborn within her.

On Wednesday night there was another sensation at the Endeavour. Mr. May found James Houghton fainting in the box-office after the performance had begun. What to do? He could not interrupt Alvina, nor the performance. He sent the chocolate-and-orange boy across to the Pear Tree for brandy.

James revived. "I'm all right," he said, in a brittle fashion. "I'm all right. Don't bother." So he sat with his head on his hand in the box-office, and Mr. May had to leave him to operate the film.

When the interval arrived, Mr. May hurried to the box-office, a narrow hole that James could just sit in, and there he found the invalid in the same posture, semi-conscious. He gave him more brandy.

"I'm all right, I tell you," said James, his eyes flaring. "Leave me alone." But he looked anything but all right.

Mr. May hurried for Alvina. When the daughter entered the ticket place, her father was again in a state of torpor.

"Father," she said, shaking his shoulder gently. "What's the matter."

He murmured something, but was incoherent. She looked at his face. It was grey and blank.

"We shall have to get him home," she said. "We shall have to get a cab."

"Give him a little brandy," said Mr. May.

The boy was sent for the cab, James swallowed a spoonful of brandy. He came to himself irritably.

"What? What," he said. "I won't have all this fuss. Go on with the performance, there's no need to bother about me." His eye was wild.

"You must go home, father," said Alvina.

"Leave me alone! Will you leave me alone! Hectored by women all my life—hectored by women—first one, then another. I won't stand it—I won't stand it—" He looked at Alvina with a look of frenzy as he lapsed again, fell with his head on his hands on his ticket-board. Alvina looked at Mr. May.

"We must get him home," she said. She covered him up with a coat, and sat by him. The performance went on without music. At last the cab came. James, unconscious, was driven up to Woodhouse. He had to be carried indoors. Alvina hurried ahead to make a light in the dark passage.

"Father's ill!" she announced to Miss Pinnegar.

"Didn't I say so!" said Miss Pinnegar, starting from her chair.

The two women went out to meet the cab-man, who had James in his arms.

"Can you manage?" cried Alvina, showing a light.

"He doesn't weigh much," said the man.

"Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu!" went Miss Pinnegar's tongue, in a rapid tut-tut of distress. "What have I said, now," she exclaimed. "What have I said all along?"

James was laid on the sofa. His eyes were half-shut. They made him drink brandy, the boy was sent for the doctor, Alvina's bed was warmed. The sick man was got to bed. And then started another vigil. Alvina sat up in the sick room. James started and muttered, but did not regain consciousness. Dawn came, and he was the same. Pneumonia and pleurisy and a touch of meningitis. Alvina drank her tea, took a little breakfast, and went to bed at about nine o'clock in the morning, leaving James in charge of Miss Pinnegar. Time was all deranged.

Miss Pinnegar was a nervous nurse. She sat in horror and apprehension, her eyebrows raised, starting and looking at James in terror whenever he made a noise. She hurried to him and did what she could. But one would have said she was repulsed, she found her task unconsciously repugnant.

During the course of the morning Mrs. Rollings came up and said that the Italian from last week had come, and could he speak to Miss Houghton.

"Tell him she's resting, and Mr. Houghton is seriously ill," said Miss Pinnegar sharply.

When Alvina came downstairs at about four in the afternoon she found a package: a comb of carved bone, and a message from Madame: "To Miss Houghton, with kindest greetings and most sincere thanks from Kishwegin."

The comb with its carved, beast-faced serpent was her portion. Alvina asked if there had been any other message. None.

Mr. May came in, and stayed for a dismal half-hour. Then Alvina went back to her nursing. The patient was no better, still unconscious. Miss Pinnegar came down, red eyed and sullen looking. The condition of James gave little room for hope.

In the early morning he died. Alvina called Mrs. Rollings, and they composed the body. It was still only five o'clock, and not light. Alvina went to lie down in her father's little, rather chilly chamber at the end of the corridor. She tried to sleep, but could not. At half-past seven she arose, and started the business of the new day. The doctor came—she went to the registrar—and so on.

Mr. May came. It was decided to keep open the theatre. He would find some one else for the piano, some one else to issue the tickets.

In the afternoon arrived Frederick Houghton, James's cousin and nearest relative. He was a middle-aged, blond, florid, church-going draper from Knarborough, well-to-do and very bourgeois. He tried to talk to Alvina in a fatherly fashion, or a friendly, or a helpful fashion. But Alvina could not listen to him. He got on her nerves.

Hearing the gate bang, she rose and hurried to the window. She was in the drawing-room with her cousin, to give the interview its proper air of solemnity. She saw Ciccio rearing his yellow bicycle against the wall, and going with his head forward along the narrow, dark way of the back yard, to the scullery door.

"Excuse me a minute," she said to her cousin, who looked up irritably as she left the room.

She was just in time to open the door as Ciccio tapped. She stood on the doorstep above him. He looked up, with a faint smile, from under his black lashes.

"How nice of you to come," she said. But her face was blanched and tired, without expression. Only her large eyes looked blue in their tiredness, as she glanced down at Ciccio. He seemed to her far away.

"Madame asks how is Mr. Houghton," he said.

"Father! He died this morning," she said quietly.

"He died!" exclaimed the Italian, a flash of fear and dismay going over his face.

"Yes—this morning." She had neither tears nor emotion, but just looked down on him abstractedly, from her height on the kitchen step. He dropped his eyes and looked at his feet. Then he lifted his eyes again, and looked at her. She looked back at him, as from across a distance. So they watched each other, as strangers across a wide, abstract distance.

He turned and looked down the dark yard, towards the gate where he could just see the pale grey tire of his bicycle, and the yellow mud-guard. He seemed to be reflecting. If he went now, he went for ever. Involuntarily he turned and lifted his face again towards Alvina, as if studying her curiously. She remained there on the doorstep, neutral, blanched, with wide, still, neutral eyes. She did not seem to see him. He studied her with alert, yellow-dusky, inscrutable eyes, until she met his look. And then he gave the faintest gesture with his head, as of summons towards him. Her soul started, and died in her. And again he gave the slight, almost imperceptible jerk of the head, backwards and sideways, as if summoning her towards him. His face too was closed and expressionless. But in his eyes, which kept hers, there was a dark flicker of ascendancy. He was going to triumph over her. She knew it. And her soul sank as if it sank out of her body. It sank away out of her body, left her there powerless, soulless.

And yet as he turned, with his head stretched forward, to move away: as he glanced slightly over his shoulder: she stepped down from the step, down to his level, to follow him. He went ducking along the dark yard, nearly to the gate. Near the gate, near his bicycle, was a corner made by a shed. Here he turned, lingeringly, to her, and she lingered in front of him.

Her eyes were wide and neutral and submissive, with a new, awful submission as if she had lost her soul. So she looked up at him, like a victim. There was a faint smile in his eyes. He stretched forward over her.

"You love me? Yes?—Yes?" he said, in a voice that seemed like a palpable contact on her.

"Yes," she whispered involuntarily, soulless, like a victim. He put his arm round her, subtly, and lifted her.

"Yes," he re-echoed, almost mocking in his triumph. "Yes. Yes!" And smiling, he kissed her, delicately, with a certain finesse of knowledge. She moaned in spirit, in his arms, felt herself dead, dead. And he kissed her with a finesse, a passionate finesse which seemed like coals of fire on her head.

They heard footsteps. Miss Pinnegar was coming to look for her. Ciccio set her down, looked long into her eyes, inscrutably, smiling, and said:

"I come tomorrow."

With which he ducked and ran out of the yard, picking up his bicycle like a feather, and, taking no notice of Miss Pinnegar, letting the yard-door bang to behind him.

"Alvina!" said Miss Pinnegar.

But Alvina did not answer. She turned, slipped past, ran indoors and upstairs to the little bare bedroom she had made her own. She locked the door and kneeled down on the floor, bowing down her head to her knees in a paroxysm on the floor. In a paroxysm—because she loved him. She doubled herself up in a paroxysm on her knees on the floor—because she loved him. It was far more like pain, like agony, than like joy. She swayed herself to and fro in a paroxysm of unbearable sensation, because she loved him.

Miss Pinnegar came and knocked at the door.

"Alvina! Alvina! Oh, you are there! Whatever are you doing? Aren't you coming down to speak to your cousin?"

"Soon," said Alvina.

And taking a pillow from the bed, she crushed it against herself and swayed herself unconsciously, in her orgasm of unbearable feeling. Right in her bowels she felt it—the terrible, unbearable feeling. How could she bear it.

She crouched over until she became still. A moment of stillness seemed to cover her like sleep: an eternity of sleep in that one second. Then she roused and got up. She went to the mirror, still, evanescent, and tidied her hair, smoothed her face. She was so still, so remote, she felt that nothing, nothing could ever touch her.

And so she went downstairs, to that horrible cousin of her father's. She seemed so intangible, remote and virginal, that her cousin and Miss Pinnegar both failed to make anything of her. She answered their questions simply, but did not talk. They talked to each other. And at last the cousin went away, with a profound dislike of Miss Alvina.

She did not notice. She was only glad he was gone. And she went about for the rest of the day elusive and vague. She slept deeply that night, without dreams.

The next day was Saturday. It came with a great storm of wind and rain and hail: a fury. Alvina looked out in dismay. She knew Ciccio would not be able to come—he could not cycle, and it was impossible to get by train and return the same day. She was almost relieved. She was relieved by the intermission of fate, she was thankful for the day of neutrality.

In the early afternoon came a telegram: Coming both tomorrow morning deepest sympathy Madame. Tomorrow was Sunday: and the funeral was in the afternoon. Alvina felt a burning inside her, thinking of Ciccio. She winced—and yet she wanted him to come. Terribly she wanted him to come.

She showed the telegram to Miss Pinnegar.

"Good gracious!" said the weary Miss Pinnegar. "Fancy those people. And I warrant they'll want to be at the funeral. As if he was anything to them—"

"I think it's very nice of her," said Alvina.

"Oh well," said Miss Pinnegar. "If you think so. I don't fancy he would have wanted such people following, myself. And what does she mean by both. Who's the other?" Miss Pinnegar looked sharply at Alvina.

"Ciccio," said Alvina.

"The Italian! Why goodness me! What's he coming for? I can't make you out, Alvina. Is that his name, Chicho? I never heard such a name. Doesn't sound like a name at all to me. There won't be room for them in the cabs."

"We'll order another."

"More expense. I never knew such impertinent people—"

But Alvina did not hear her. On the next morning she dressed herself carefully in her new dress. It was black voile. Carefully she did her hair. Ciccio and Madame were coming. The thought of Ciccio made her shudder. She hung about, waiting. Luckily none of the funeral guests would arrive till after one o'clock. Alvina sat listless, musing, by the fire in the drawing-room. She left everything now to Miss Pinnegar and Mrs. Rollings. Miss Pinnegar, red-eyed and yellow-skinned, was irritable beyond words.

It was nearly mid-day when Alvina heard the gate. She hurried to open the front door. Madame was in her little black hat and her black spotted veil, Ciccio in a black overcoat was closing the yard door behind her.

"Oh, my dear girl!" Madame cried, trotting forward with outstretched black-kid hands, one of which held an umbrella: "I am so shocked—I am so shocked to hear of your poor father. Am I to believe it?—am I really? No, I can't."

She lifted her veil, kissed Alvina, and dabbed her eyes. Ciccio came up the steps. He took off his hat to Alvina, smiled slightly as he passed her. He looked rather pale, constrained. She closed the door and ushered them into the drawing-room.

Madame looked round like a bird, examining the room and the furniture. She was evidently a little impressed. But all the time she was uttering her condolences.

"Tell me, poor girl, how it happened?"

"There isn't much to tell," said Alvina, and she gave the brief account of James's illness and death.

"Worn out! Worn out!" Madame said, nodding slowly up and down. Her black veil, pushed up, sagged over her brows like a mourning band. "You cannot afford to waste the stamina. And will you keep on the theatre—with Mr. May—?"

Ciccio was sitting looking towards the fire. His presence made Alvina tremble. She noticed how the fine black hair of his head showed no parting at all—it just grew like a close cap, and was pushed aside at the forehead. Sometimes he looked at her, as Madame talked, and again looked at her, and looked away.

At last Madame came to a halt. There was a long pause.

"You will stay to the funeral?" said Alvina.

"Oh my dear, we shall be too much—"

"No," said Alvina. "I have arranged for you—"

"There! You think of everything. But I will come, not Ciccio. He will not trouble you."

Ciccio looked up at Alvina.

"I should like him to come," said Alvina simply. But a deep flush began to mount her face. She did not know where it came from, she felt so cold. And she wanted to cry.

Madame watched her closely.

"Siamo di accordo," came the voice of Ciccio.

Alvina and Madame both looked at him. He sat constrained, with his face averted, his eyes dropped, but smiling.

Madame looked closely at Alvina.

"Is it true what he says?" she asked.

"I don't understand him," said Alvina. "I don't understand what he said."

"That you have agreed with him—"

Madame and Ciccio both watched Alvina as she sat in her new black dress. Her eyes involuntarily turned to his.

"I don't know," she said vaguely. "Have I—?" and she looked at him.

Madame kept silence for some moments. Then she said gravely:

"Well!—yes!—well!" She looked from one to another. "Well, there is a lot to consider. But if you have decided—"

Neither of them answered. Madame suddenly rose and went to Alvina. She kissed her on either cheek.

"I shall protect you," she said.

Then she returned to her seat.

"What have you said to Miss Houghton?" she said suddenly to Ciccio, tackling him direct, and speaking coldly.

He looked at Madame with a faint derisive smile. Then he turned to Alvina. She bent her head and blushed.

"Speak then," said Madame, "you have a reason." She seemed mistrustful of him.

But he turned aside his face, and refused to speak, sitting as if he were unaware of Madame's presence.

"Oh well," said Madame. "I shall be there, Signorino."

She spoke with a half-playful threat. Ciccio curled his lip.

"You do not know him yet," she said, turning to Alvina.

"I know that," said Alvina, offended. Then she added: "Wouldn't you like to take off your hat?"

"If you truly wish me to stay," said Madame.

"Yes, please do. And will you hang your coat in the hall?" she said to Ciccio.

"Oh!" said Madame roughly. "He will not stay to eat. He will go out to somewhere."

Alvina looked at him.

"Would you rather?" she said.

He looked at her with sardonic yellow eyes.

"If you want," he said, the awkward, derisive smile curling his lips and showing his teeth.

She had a moment of sheer panic. Was he just stupid and bestial? The thought went clean through her. His yellow eyes watched her sardonically. It was the clean modelling of his dark, other-world face that decided her—for it sent the deep spasm across her.

"I'd like you to stay," she said.

A smile of triumph went over his face. Madame watched him stonily as she stood beside her chair, one hand lightly balanced on her hip. Alvina was reminded of Kishwegin. But even in Madame's stony mistrust there was an element of attraction towards him. He had taken his cigarette case from his pocket.

"On ne fume pas dans le salon," said Madame brutally.

"Will you put your coat in the passage?—and do smoke if you wish," said Alvina.

He rose to his feet and took off his overcoat. His face was obstinate and mocking. He was rather floridly dressed, though in black, and wore boots of black patent leather with tan uppers. Handsome he was—but undeniably in bad taste. The silver ring was still on his finger—and his close, fine, unparted hair went badly with smart English clothes. He looked common—Alvina confessed it. And her heart sank. But what was she to do? He evidently was not happy. Obstinacy made him stick out the situation.

Alvina and Madame went upstairs. Madame wanted to see the dead James. She looked at his frail, handsome, ethereal face, and crossed herself as she wept.

"Un bel homme, cependant," she whispered. "Mort en un jour. C'est trop fort, voyez!" And she sniggered with fear and sobs.

They went down to Alvina's bare room. Madame glanced round, as she did in every room she entered.

"This was father's bedroom," said Alvina. "The other was mine. He wouldn't have it anything but like this—bare."

"Nature of a monk, a hermit," whispered Madame. "Who would have thought it! Ah, the men, the men!"

And she unpinned her hat and patted her hair before the small mirror, into which she had to peep to see herself. Alvina stood waiting.

"And now—" whispered Madame, suddenly turning: "What about this Ciccio, hein?" It was ridiculous that she would not raise her voice above a whisper, upstairs there. But so it was.

She scrutinized Alvina with her eyes of bright black glass. Alvina looked back at her, but did not know what to say.

"What about him, hein? Will you marry him? Why will you?"

"I suppose because I like him," said Alvina, flushing.

Madame made a little grimace.

"Oh yes!" she whispered, with a contemptuous mouth. "Oh yes!—because you like him! But you know nothing of him—nothing. How can you like him, not knowing him? He may be a real bad character. How would you like him then?"

"He isn't, is he?" said Alvina.

"I don't know. I don't know. He may be. Even I, I don't know him—no, though he has been with me for three years. What is he? He is a man of the people, a boatman, a labourer, an artist's model. He sticks to nothing—"

"How old is he?" asked Alvina.

"He is twenty-five—a boy only. And you? You are older."

"Thirty," confessed Alvina.

"Thirty! Well now—so much difference! How can you trust him? How can you? Why does he want to marry you—why?"

"I don't know—" said Alvina.

"No, and I don't know. But I know something of these Italian men, who are labourers in every country, just labourers and under-men always, always down, down, down—" And Madame pressed her spread palms downwards. "And so—when they have a chance to come up—" she raised her hand with a spring—"they are very conceited, and they take their chance. He will want to rise, by you, and you will go down, with him. That is how it is. I have seen it before—yes—more than one time—"

"But," said Alvina, laughing ruefully. "He can't rise much because of me, can he?"

"How not? How not? In the first place, you are English, and he thinks to rise by that. Then you are not of the lower class, you are of the higher class, the class of the masters, such as employ Ciccio and men like him. How will he not rise in the world by you? Yes, he will rise very much. Or he will draw you down, down—Yes, one or another. And then he thinks that now you have money—now your father is dead—" here Madame glanced apprehensively at the closed door—"and they all like money, yes, very much, all Italians—"

"Do they?" said Alvina, scared. "I'm sure there won't be any money. I'm sure father is in debt."

"What? You think? Do you? Really? Oh poor Miss Houghton! Well—and will you tell Ciccio that? Eh? Hein?"

"Yes—certainly—if it matters," said poor Alvina.

"Of course it matters. Of course it matters very much. It matters to him. Because he will not have much. He saves, saves, saves, as they all do, to go back to Italy and buy a piece of land. And if he has you, it will cost him much more, he cannot continue with Natcha-Kee-Tawara. All will be much more difficult—"

"Oh, I will tell him in time," said Alvina, pale at the lips.

"You will tell him! Yes. That is better. And then you will see. But he is obstinate—as a mule. And if he will still have you, then you must think. Can you live in England as the wife of a labouring man, a dirty Eyetalian, as they all say? It is serious. It is not pleasant for you, who have not known it. I also have not known it. But I have seen—" Alvina watched with wide, troubled eyes, while Madame darted looks, as from bright, deep black glass.

"Yes," said Alvina. "I should hate being a labourer's wife in a nasty little house in a street—"

"In a house?" cried Madame. "It would not be in a house. They live many together in one house. It would be two rooms, or even one room, in another house with many people not quite clean, you see—"

Alvina shook her head.

"I couldn't stand that," she said finally.

"No!" Madame nodded approval. "No! you could not. They live in a bad way, the Italians. They do not know the English home—never. They don't like it. Nor do they know the Swiss clean and proper house. No. They don't understand. They run into their holes to sleep or to shelter, and that is all."

"The same in Italy?" said Alvina.

"Even more—because there it is sunny very often—"

"And you don't need a house," said Alvina. "I should like that."

"Yes, it is nice—but you don't know the life. And you would be alone with people like animals. And if you go to Italy he will beat you—he will beat you—"

"If I let him," said Alvina.

"But you can't help it, away there from everybody. Nobody will help you. If you are a wife in Italy, nobody will help you. You are his property, when you marry by Italian law. It is not like England. There is no divorce in Italy. And if he beats you, you are helpless—"

"But why should he beat me?" said Alvina. "Why should he want to?"

"They do. They are so jealous. And then they go into their ungovernable tempers, horrible tempers—"

"Only when they are provoked," said Alvina, thinking of Max.

"Yes, but you will not know what provokes him. Who can say when he will be provoked? And then he beats you—"

There seemed to be a gathering triumph in Madame's bright black eyes. Alvina looked at her, and turned to the door.

"At any rate I know now," she said, in rather a flat voice.

"And it is true. It is all of it true," whispered Madame vindictively. Alvina wanted to run from her.

"I must go to the kitchen," she said. "Shall we go down?"

Alvina did not go into the drawing-room with Madame. She was too much upset, and she had almost a horror of seeing Ciccio at that moment.

Miss Pinnegar, her face stained carmine by the fire, was helping Mrs. Rollings with the dinner.

"Are they both staying, or only one?" she said tartly.

"Both," said Alvina, busying herself with the gravy, to hide her distress and confusion.

"The man as well," said Miss Pinnegar. "What does the woman want to bring him for? I'm sure I don't know what your father would say—a common show-fellow, looks what he is—and staying to dinner."

Miss Pinnegar was thoroughly out of temper as she tried the potatoes. Alvina set the table. Then she went to the drawing-room.

"Will you come to dinner?" she said to her two guests.

Ciccio rose, threw his cigarette into the fire, and looked round. Outside was a faint, watery sunshine: but at least it was out of doors. He felt himself imprisoned and out of his element. He had an irresistible impulse to go.

When he got into the hall he laid his hand on his hat. The stupid, constrained smile was on his face.

"I'll go now," he said.

"We have set the table for you," said Alvina.

"Stop now, since you have stopped for so long," said Madame, darting her black looks at him.

But he hurried on his coat, looking stupid. Madame lifted her eyebrows disdainfully.

"This is polite behaviour!" she said sarcastically.

Alvina stood at a loss.

"You return to the funeral?" said Madame coldly.

He shook his head.

"When you are ready to go," he said.

"At four o'clock," said Madame, "when the funeral has come home. Then we shall be in time for the train."

He nodded, smiled stupidly, opened the door, and went.

"This is just like him, to be so—so—" Madame could not express herself as she walked down to the kitchen.

"Miss Pinnegar, this is Madame," said Alvina.

"How do you do?" said Miss Pinnegar, a little distant and condescending. Madame eyed her keenly.

"Where is the man? I don't know his name," said Miss Pinnegar.

"He wouldn't stay," said Alvina. "What is his name, Madame?"

"Marasca—Francesco. Francesco Marasca—Neapolitan."

"Marasca!" echoed Alvina.

"It has a bad sound—a sound of a bad augury, bad sign," said Madame. "Ma-ra-sca!" She shook her head at the taste of the syllables.

"Why do you think so?" said Alvina. "Do you think there is a meaning in sounds? goodness and badness?"

"Yes," said Madame. "Certainly. Some sounds are good, they are for life, for creating, and some sounds are bad, they are for destroying. Ma-ra-sca!—that is bad, like swearing."

"But what sort of badness? What does it do?" said Alvina.

"What does it do? It sends life down—down—instead of lifting it up."

"Why should things always go up? Why should life always go up?" said Alvina.

"I don't know," said Madame, cutting her meat quickly. There was a pause.

"And what about other names," interrupted Miss Pinnegar, a little lofty. "What about Houghton, for example?"

Madame put down her fork, but kept her knife in her hand. She looked across the room, not at Miss Pinnegar.

"Houghton—! Huff-ton!" she said. "When it is said, it has a sound against: that is, against the neighbour, against humanity. But when it is written Hough-ton! then it is different, it is for."

"It is always pronounced Huff-ton," said Miss Pinnegar.

"By us," said Alvina.

"We ought to know," said Miss Pinnegar.

Madame turned to look at the unhappy, elderly woman.

"You are a relative of the family?" she said.

"No, not a relative. But I've been here many years," said Miss Pinnegar.

"Oh, yes!" said Madame. Miss Pinnegar was frightfully affronted. The meal, with the three women at table, passed painfully.

Miss Pinnegar rose to go upstairs and weep. She felt very forlorn. Alvina rose to wipe the dishes, hastily, because the funeral guests would all be coming. Madame went into the drawing-room to smoke her sly cigarette.

Mr. May was the first to turn up for the lugubrious affair: very tight and tailored, but a little extinguished, all in black. He never wore black, and was very unhappy in it, being almost morbidly sensitive to the impression the colour made on him. He was set to entertain Madame.

She did not pretend distress, but sat black-eyed and watchful, very much her business self.

"What about the theatre?—will it go on?" she asked.

"Well I don't know. I don't know Miss Houghton's intentions," said Mr. May. He was a little stilted today.

"It's hers?" said Madame.

"Why, as far as I understand—"

"And if she wants to sell out—?"

Mr. May spread his hands, and looked dismal, but distant.

"You should form a company, and carry on—" said Madame.

Mr. May looked even more distant, drawing himself up in an odd fashion, so that he looked as if he were trussed. But Madame's shrewd black eyes and busy mind did not let him off.

"Buy Miss Houghton out—" said Madame shrewdly.

"Of cauce," said Mr. May. "Miss Houghton herself must decide."

"Oh sure—! You—are you married?"

"Yes."

"Your wife here?"

"My wife is in London."

"And children—?"

"A daughter."

Madame slowly nodded her head up and down, as if she put thousands of two-and-two's together.

"You think there will be much to come to Miss Houghton?" she said.

"Do you mean property? I really can't say. I haven't enquired."

"No, but you have a good idea, eh?"

"I'm afraid I haven't.

"No! Well! It won't be much, then?"

"Really, I don't know. I should say, not a large fortune—!"

"No—eh?" Madame kept him fixed with her black eyes. "Do you think the other one will get anything?"

"The other one—?" queried Mr. May, with an uprising cadence. Madame nodded slightly towards the kitchen.

"The old one—the Miss—Miss Pin—Pinny—what you call her."

"Miss Pinnegar! The manageress of the work-girls? Really, I don't know at all—" Mr. May was most freezing.

"Ha—ha! Ha—ha!" mused Madame quietly. Then she asked: "Which work-girls do you say?"

And she listened astutely to Mr. May's forced account of the work-room upstairs, extorting all the details she desired to gather. Then there was a pause. Madame glanced round the room.

"Nice house!" she said. "Is it their own?"

"So I believe—"

Again Madame nodded sagely. "Debts perhaps—eh? Mortgage—" and she looked slyly sardonic.

"Really!" said Mr. May, bouncing to his feet. "Do you mind if I go to speak to Mrs. Rollings—"

"Oh no—go along," said Madame, and Mr. May skipped out in a temper.



Madame was left alone in her comfortable chair, studying details of the room and making accounts in her own mind, until the actual funeral guests began to arrive. And then she had the satisfaction of sizing them up. Several arrived with wreaths. The coffin had been carried down and laid in the small sitting-room—Mrs. Houghton's sitting-room. It was covered with white wreaths and streamers of purple ribbon. There was a crush and a confusion.

And then at last the hearse and the cabs had arrived—the coffin was carried out—Alvina followed, on the arm of her father's cousin, whom she disliked. Miss Pinnegar marshalled the other mourners. It was a wretched business.

But it was a great funeral. There were nine cabs, besides the hearse—Woodhouse had revived its ancient respect for the house of Houghton. A posse of minor tradesmen followed the cabs—all in black and with black gloves. The richer tradesmen sat in the cabs.

Poor Alvina, this was the only day in all her life when she was the centre of public attention. For once, every eye was upon her, every mind was thinking about her. Poor Alvina! said every member of the Woodhouse "middle class": Poor Alvina Houghton, said every collier's wife. Poor thing, left alone—and hardly a penny to bless herself with. Lucky if she's not left with a pile of debts. James Houghton ran through some money in his day. Ay, if she had her rights she'd be a rich woman. Why, her mother brought three or four thousands with her. Ay, but James sank it all in Throttle-Ha'penny and Klondyke and the Endeavour. Well, he was his own worst enemy. He paid his way. I'm not so sure about that. Look how he served his wife, and now Alvina. I'm not so sure he was his own worst enemy. He was bad enough enemy to his own flesh and blood. Ah well, he'll spend no more money, anyhow. No, he went sudden, didn't he? But he was getting very frail, if you noticed. Oh yes, why he fair seemed to totter down to Lumley. Do you reckon as that place pays its way? What, the Endeavour?—they say it does. They say it makes a nice bit. Well, it's mostly pretty full. Ay, it is. Perhaps it won't be now Mr. Houghton's gone. Perhaps not. I wonder if he will leave much. I'm sure he won't. Everything he's got's mortgaged up to the hilt. He'll leave debts, you see if he doesn't. What is she going to do then? She'll have to go out of Manchester House—her and Miss Pinnegar. Wonder what she'll do. Perhaps she'll take up that nursing. She never made much of that, did she—and spent a sight of money on her training, they say. She's a bit like her father in the business line—all flukes. Pity some nice young man doesn't turn up and marry her. I don't know, she doesn't seem to hook on, does she? Why she's never had a proper boy. They make out she was engaged once. Ay, but nobody ever saw him, and it was off as soon as it was on. Can you remember she went with Albert Witham for a bit. Did she? No, I never knew. When was that? Why, when he was at Oxford, you know, learning for his head master's place. Why didn't she marry him then? Perhaps he never asked her. Ay, there's that to it. She'd have looked down her nose at him, times gone by. Ay, but that's all over, my boy. She'd snap at anybody now. Look how she carries on with that manager. Why, that's something awful. Haven't you ever watched her in the Cinema? She never lets him alone. And it's anybody alike. Oh, she doesn't respect herself. I don't consider. No girl who respected herself would go on as she does, throwing herself at every feller's head. Does she, though? Ay, any performer or anybody. She's a tidy age, though. She's not much chance of getting off. How old do you reckon she is? Must be well over thirty. You never say. Well, she looks it. She does beguy—a dragged old maid. Oh but she sprightles up a bit sometimes. Ay, when she thinks she's hooked on to somebody. I wonder why she never did take? It's funny. Oh, she was too high and mighty before, and now it's too late. Nobody wants her. And she's got no relations to go to either, has she? No, that's her father's cousin who she's walking with. Look, they're coming. He's a fine-looking man, isn't he? You'd have thought they'd have buried Miss Frost beside Mrs. Houghton. You would, wouldn't you? I should think Alvina will lie by Miss Frost. They say the grave was made for both of them. Ay, she was a lot more of a mother to her than her own mother. She was good to them, Miss Frost was. Alvina thought the world of her. That's her stone—look, down there. Not a very grand one, considering. No, it isn't. Look, there's room for Alvina's name underneath. Sh!—

Alvina had sat back in the cab and watched from her obscurity the many faces on the street: so familiar, so familiar, familiar as her own face. And now she seemed to see them from a great distance, out of her darkness. Her big cousin sat opposite her—how she disliked his presence.

In chapel she cried, thinking of her mother, and Miss Frost, and her father. She felt so desolate—it all seemed so empty. Bitterly she cried, when she bent down during the prayer. And her crying started Miss Pinnegar, who cried almost as bitterly. It was all rather horrible. The afterwards—the horrible afterwards.

There was the slow progress to the cemetery. It was a dull, cold day. Alvina shivered as she stood on the bleak hillside, by the open grave. Her coat did not seem warm enough, her old black seal-skin furs were not much protection. The minister stood on the plank by the grave, and she stood near, watching the white flowers blowing in the cold wind. She had watched them for her mother—and for Miss Frost. She felt a sudden clinging to Miss Pinnegar. Yet they would have to part. Miss Pinnegar had been so fond of her father, in a quaint, reserved way. Poor Miss Pinnegar, that was all life had offered her. Well, after all, it had been a home and a home life. To which home and home life Alvina now clung with a desperate yearning, knowing inevitably she was going to lose it, now her father was gone. Strange, that he was gone. But he was weary, worn very thin and weary. He had lived his day. How different it all was, now, at his death, from the time when Alvina knew him as a little child and thought him such a fine gentleman. You live and learn and lose.

For one moment she looked at Madame, who was shuddering with cold, her face hidden behind her black spotted veil. But Madame seemed immensely remote: so unreal. And Ciccio—what was his name? She could not think of it. What was it? She tried to think of Madame's slow enunciation. Marasca—maraschino. Marasca! Maraschino! What was maraschino? Where had she heard it. Cudgelling her brains, she remembered the doctors, and the suppers after the theatre. And maraschino—why, that was the favourite white liqueur of the innocent Dr. Young. She could remember even now the way he seemed to smack his lips, saying the word maraschino. Yet she didn't think much of it. Hot, bitterish stuff—nothing: not like green Chartreuse, which Dr. James gave her. Maraschino! Yes, that was it. Made from cherries. Well, Ciccio's name was nearly the same. Ridiculous! But she supposed Italian words were a good deal alike.

Ciccio, the marasca, the bitter cherry, was standing on the edge of the crowd, looking on. He had no connection whatever with the proceedings—stood outside, self-conscious, uncomfortable, bitten by the wind, and hating the people who stared at him. He saw the trim, plump figure of Madame, like some trim plump partridge among a flock of barn-yard fowls. And he depended on her presence. Without her, he would have felt too horribly uncomfortable on that raw hillside. She and he were in some way allied. But these others, how alien and uncouth he felt them. Impressed by their fine clothes, the English working-classes were none the less barbarians to him, uncivilized: just as he was to them an uncivilized animal. Uncouth, they seemed to him, all raw angles and harshness, like their own weather. Not that he thought about them. But he felt it in his flesh, the harshness and discomfort of them. And Alvina was one of them. As she stood there by the grave, pale and pinched and reserved looking, she was of a piece with the hideous cold grey discomfort of the whole scene. Never had anything been more uncongenial to him. He was dying to get away—to clear out. That was all he wanted. Only some southern obstinacy made him watch, from the duskiness of his face, the pale, reserved girl at the grave. Perhaps he even disliked her, at that time. But he watched in his dislike.

When the ceremony was over, and the mourners turned away to go back to the cabs, Madame pressed forward to Alvina.

"I shall say good-bye now, Miss Houghton. We must go to the station for the train. And thank you, thank you. Good-bye."

"But—" Alvina looked round.

"Ciccio is there. I see him. We must catch the train."

"Oh but—won't you drive? Won't you ask Ciccio to drive with you in the cab? Where is he?"

Madame pointed him out as he hung back among the graves, his black hat cocked a little on one side. He was watching. Alvina broke away from her cousin, and went to him.

"Madame is going to drive to the station," she said. "She wants you to get in with her."

He looked round at the cabs.

"All right," he said, and he picked his way across the graves to Madame, following Alvina.

"So, we go together in the cab," said Madame to him. Then: "Good-bye, my dear Miss Houghton. Perhaps we shall meet once more. Who knows? My heart is with you, my dear." She put her arms round Alvina and kissed her, a little theatrically. The cousin looked on, very much aloof. Ciccio stood by.

"Come then, Ciccio," said Madame.

"Good-bye," said Alvina to him. "You'll come again, won't you?" She looked at him from her strained, pale face.

"All right," he said, shaking her hand loosely. It sounded hopelessly indefinite.

"You will come, won't you?" she repeated, staring at him with strained, unseeing blue eyes.

"All right," he said, ducking and turning away.

She stood quite still for a moment, quite lost. Then she went on with her cousin to her cab, home to the funeral tea.

"Good-bye!" Madame fluttered a black-edged handkerchief. But Ciccio, most uncomfortable in his four-wheeler, kept hidden.

The funeral tea, with its baked meats and sweets, was a terrible affair. But it came to an end, as everything comes to an end, and Miss Pinnegar and Alvina were left alone in the emptiness of Manchester House.

"If you weren't here, Miss Pinnegar, I should be quite by myself," said Alvina, blanched and strained.

"Yes. And so should I without you," said Miss Pinnegar doggedly. They looked at each other. And that night both slept in Miss Pinnegar's bed, out of sheer terror of the empty house.

During the days following the funeral, no one could have been more tiresome than Alvina. James had left everything to his daughter, excepting some rights in the work-shop, which were Miss Pinnegar's. But the question was, how much did "everything" amount to? There was something less than a hundred pounds in the bank. There was a mortgage on Manchester House. There were substantial bills owing on account of the Endeavour. Alvina had about a hundred pounds left from the insurance money, when all funeral expenses were paid. Of that she was sure, and of nothing else.