lvina in his dark, hangdog fashion, and she did
not move a muscle until he came to a standstill in front of her. She
was watching his face.

"Te voila donc!" she said, without expression. "Allons boire un
cafe, he? Let us go and drink some coffee." She had now put an
inflection of tenderness into her voice. But her eyes were black
with anger. Ciccio smiled slowly, the slow, fine, stupid smile, and
turned to walk alongside.

Madame said nothing as they went. Geoffrey passed on his bicycle,
calling out that he would go straight to Woodhouse.

When the three sat with their cups of coffee, Madame pushed up her
veil just above her eyes, so that it was a black band above her
brows. Her face was pale and full like a child's, but almost stonily
expressionless, her eyes were black and inscrutable. She watched
both Ciccio and Alvina with her black, inscrutable looks.

"Would you like also biscuits with your coffee, the two of you?" she
said, with an amiable intonation which her strange black looks
belied.

"Yes," said Alvina. She was a little flushed, as if defiant, while
Ciccio sat sheepishly, turning aside his ducked head, the slow,
stupid, yet fine smile on his lips.

"And no more trouble with Max, hein?--you Ciccio?" said Madame,
still with the amiable intonation and the same black, watching eyes.
"No more of these stupid scenes, hein? What? Do you answer me."

"No more from me," he said, looking up at her with a narrow,
cat-like look in his derisive eyes.

"Ho? No? No more? Good then! It is good! We are glad, aren't we,
Miss Houghton, that Ciccio has come back and there are to be no
more rows?--hein?--aren't we?"

"_I'm_ awfully glad," said Alvina.

"Awfully glad--yes--awfully glad! You hear, you Ciccio. And you
remember another time. What? Don't you? He?"

He looked up at her, the slow, derisive smile curling his lips.

"Sure," he said slowly, with subtle intonation.

"Yes. Good! Well then! Well then! We are all friends. We are all
friends, aren't we, all the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras? He? What you think?
What you say?"

"Yes," said Ciccio, again looking up at her with his yellow,
glinting eyes.

"All right! All right then! It is all right--forgotten--" Madame
sounded quite frank and restored. But the sullen watchfulness in her
eyes, and the narrowed look in Ciccio's, as he glanced at her,
showed another state behind the obviousness of the words. "And Miss
Houghton is one of us! Yes? She has united us once mor