," said Geoffrey.

"Where?"

"See you tomorrow in Knarborough. Go to Mrs. Pym's, 6 Hampden
Street. Gittiventi is there. Right, eh?"

"I'll think about it."

"Eleven o'clock, eh?"

"I'll think about it."

"Friends ever--Ciccio--eh?" Geoffrey held out his hand.

Ciccio slowly took it. The two men leaned to each other and kissed
farewell, on either cheek.

"Tomorrow, Cic'--"

"Au revoir, Gigi."

Ciccio dropped on to his bicycle and was gone in a breath. Geoffrey
waited a moment for a tram which was rushing brilliantly up to him
in the rain. Then he mounted and rode in the opposite direction. He
went straight down to Lumley, and Madame had to remain on
tenterhooks till ten o'clock.

She heard the news, and said:

"Tomorrow I go to fetch him." And with this she went to bed.

In the morning she was up betimes, sending a note to Alvina. Alvina
appeared at nine o'clock.

"You will come with me?" said Madame. "Come. Together we will go to
Knarborough and bring back the naughty Ciccio. Come with me, because
I haven't all my strength. Yes, you will? Good! Good! Let us tell
the young men, and we will go now, on the tram-car."

"But I am not properly dressed," said Alvina.

"Who will see?" said Madame. "Come, let us go."

They told Geoffrey they would meet him at the corner of Hampden
Street at five minutes to eleven.

"You see," said Madame to Alvina, "they are very funny, these young
men, particularly Italians. You must never let them think you have
caught them. Perhaps he will not let us see him--who knows? Perhaps
he will go off to Italy all the same."

They sat in the bumping tram-car, a long and wearying journey. And
then they tramped the dreary, hideous streets of the manufacturing
town. At the corner of the street they waited for Geoffrey, who rode
up muddily on his bicycle.

"Ask Ciccio to come out to us, and we will go and drink coffee at
the Geisha Restaurant--or tea or something," said Madame.

Again the two women waited wearily at the street-end. At last
Geoffrey returned, shaking his head.

"He won't come?" cried Madame.

"No."

"He says he is going back to Italy?"

"To London."

"It is the same. You can never trust them. Is he quite obstinate?"

Geoffrey lifted his shoulders. Madame could see the beginnings of
defection in him too. And she was tired and dispirited.

"We shall have to finish the Natcha-Kee-Tawara, that is all," she
said fretfully.

Geoffrey watched her stolidly