d
party. And then it was strictly a visit of ceremony or business.

"Oh, your Woodhouse, how glad I shall be when I have left it," she
said to Alvina. "I feel it is unlucky for me."

"Do you?" said Alvina. "But if you'd had this bad cold in some
places, you might have been much worse, don't you think."

"Oh my dear!" cried Madame. "Do you think I could confuse you in my
dislike of this Woodhouse? Oh no! You are not Woodhouse. On the
contrary, I think it is unkind for you also, this place. You
look--also--what shall I say--thin, not very happy."

It was a note of interrogation.

"I'm sure I dislike Woodhouse much more than you can," replied
Alvina.

"I am sure. Yes! I am sure. I see it. Why don't you go away? Why
don't you marry?"

"Nobody wants to marry me," said Alvina.

Madame looked at her searchingly, with shrewd black eyes under her
arched eyebrows.

"How!" she exclaimed. "How don't they? You are not bad looking, only
a little too thin--too haggard--"

She watched Alvina. Alvina laughed uncomfortably.

"Is there _nobody_?" persisted Madame.

"Not now," said Alvina. "Absolutely nobody." She looked with a
confused laugh into Madame's strict black eyes. "You see I didn't
care for the Woodhouse young men, either. I _couldn't_."

Madame nodded slowly up and down. A secret satisfaction came over
her pallid, waxy countenance, in which her black eyes were like twin
swift extraneous creatures: oddly like two bright little dark
animals in the snow.

"Sure!" she said, sapient. "Sure! How could you? But there are other
men besides these here--" She waved her hand to the window.

"I don't meet them, do I?" said Alvina.

"No, not often. But sometimes! sometimes!"

There was a silence between the two women, very pregnant.

"Englishwomen," said Madame, "are so practical. Why are they?"

"I suppose they can't help it," said Alvina. "But they're not half
so practical and clever as _you_, Madame."

"Oh la--la! I am practical differently. I am practical
impractically--" she stumbled over the words. "But your Sue now, in
Jude the Obscure--is it not an interesting book? And is she not
always too practically practical. If she had been impractically
practical she could have been quite happy. Do you know what I
mean?--no. But she is ridiculous. Sue: so Anna Karenine. Ridiculous
both. Don't you think?"

"Why?" said Alvina.

"Why did they both make everybody unhappy, when they had the man
they wanted, and enoug