The Lost Girl Part 37

"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, impa.s.sively.

"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 impa.s.sive.

"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 pa.s.sed 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?"