The Lost Girl Part 44

"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 pa.s.sage?--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 sn.i.g.g.e.red 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 gla.s.s. 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 cla.s.s, you are of the higher cla.s.s, the cla.s.s 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 gla.s.s.

"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. n.o.body will help you. If you are a wife in Italy, n.o.body 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--"