e's actual lives from the cinema. I don't see why you want
people dressing up and showing off."

They sat down to their tea and toast and marmalade, during this
harangue. Miss Pinnegar was always like a douche of cold water to
Alvina, bringing her back to consciousness after a delicious
excitement. In a minute Madame and Ciccio and all seemed to become
unreal--the actual unrealities: while the ragged dithering pictures
of the film were actual, real as the day. And Alvina was always put
out when this happened. She really hated Miss Pinnegar. Yet she had
nothing to answer. They _were_ unreal, Madame and Ciccio and the
rest. Ciccio was just a fantasy blown in on the wind, to blow away
again. The real, permanent thing was Woodhouse, the _semper idem_
Knarborough Road, and the unchangeable grubby gloom of Manchester
House, with the stuffy, padding Miss Pinnegar, and her father, whose
fingers, whose very soul seemed dirty with pennies. These were the
solid, permanent fact. These were life itself. And Ciccio, splashing
up on his bay horse and green cloth, he was a mountebank and an
extraneous nonentity, a coloured old rag blown down the Knarborough
Road into Limbo. Into Limbo. Whilst Miss Pinnegar and her father sat
frowsily on for ever, eating their toast and cutting off the crust,
and sipping their third cup of tea. They would never blow
away--never, never. Woodhouse was there to eternity. And the
Natcha-Kee-Tawara Troupe was blowing like a rag of old paper into
Limbo. Nothingness! Poor Madame! Poor gallant histrionic Madame! The
frowsy Miss Pinnegar could crumple her up and throw her down the
utilitarian drain, and have done with her. Whilst Miss Pinnegar
lived on for ever.

This put Alvina into a sharp temper.

"Miss Pinnegar," she said. "I do think you go on in the most
unattractive way sometimes. You're a regular spoil-sport."

"Well," said Miss Pinnegar tartly. "I don't approve of your way of
sport, I'm afraid."

"You can't disapprove of it as much as I hate your spoil-sport
existence," said Alvina in a flare.

"Alvina, are you mad!" said her father.

"Wonder I'm not," said Alvina, "considering what my life is."

CHAPTER VIII

CICCIO

Madame did not pick up her spirits, after her cold. For two days she
lay in bed, attended by Mrs. Rollings and Alvina and the young men.
But she was most careful never to give any room for scandal. The
young men might not approach her save in the presence of some thir