going to do it?" said Alvina.

He gave a Neapolitan grimace, and twiddled the fingers of one hand
outspread in the air, as if to say: "There you are! You've got to
thank the fools who've failed to do it."

"Why do you all love Madame so much?" Alvina asked.

"How, love?" he said, making a little grimace. "We like her--we love
her--as if she were a mother. You say _love_--" He raised his
shoulders slightly, with a shrug. And all the time he looked down at
Alvina from under his dusky eyelashes, as if watching her sideways,
and his mouth had the peculiar, stupid, self-conscious, half-jeering
smile. Alvina was a little bit annoyed. But she felt that a great
instinctive good-naturedness came out of him, he was self-conscious
and constrained, knowing she did not follow his language of gesture.
For him, it was not yet quite natural to express himself in speech.
Gesture and grimace were instantaneous, and spoke worlds of things,
if you would but accept them.

But certainly he was stupid, in her sense of the word. She could
hear Mr. May's verdict of him: "Like a child, you know, just as
charming and just as tiresome and just as stupid."

"Where is your home?" she asked him.

"In Italy." She felt a fool.

"Which part?" she insisted.

"Naples," he said, looking down at her sideways, searchingly.

"It must be lovely," she said.

"Ha--!" He threw his head on one side and spread out his hands, as
if to say--"What do you want, if you don't find Naples lovely."

"I should like to see it. But I shouldn't like to die," she said.

"What?"

"They say 'See Naples and die,'" she laughed.

He opened his mouth, and understood. Then he smiled at her directly.

"You know what that means?" he said cutely. "It means see Naples and
die afterwards. Don't die _before_ you've seen it." He smiled with a
knowing smile.

"I see! I see!" she cried. "I never thought of that."

He was pleased with her surprise and amusement.

"Ah Naples!" he said. "She is lovely--" He spread his hand across
the air in front of him--"The sea--and Posilippo--and Sorrento--and
Capri--Ah-h! You've never been out of England?"

"No," she said. "I should love to go."

He looked down into her eyes. It was his instinct to say at once he
would take her.

"You've seen nothing--nothing," he said to her.

"But if Naples is so lovely, how could you leave it?" she asked.

"What?"

She repeated her question. For answer, he looked at her, held out
his hand, a