“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
