handsome, downward-drooping torso: so stupid and full. The fine
sharp uprightness of Max seemed much finer, clearer, more manly.
Ciccio's velvety, suave heaviness, the very heave of his muscles, so
full and softly powerful, sickened her.

She flashed away angrily on her piano. Madame, who was dancing
Kishwegin on the last evening, cast sharp glances at her. Alvina had
avoided Madame as Ciccio had avoided Alvina--elusive and yet
conscious, a distance, and yet a connection.

Madame danced beautifully. No denying it, she was an artist. She
became something quite different: fresh, virginal, pristine, a magic
creature flickering there. She was infinitely delicate and
attractive. Her _braves_ became glamorous and heroic at once, and
magically she cast her spell over them. It was all very well for
Alvina to bang the piano crossly. She could not put out the glow
which surrounded Kishwegin and her troupe. Ciccio was handsome now:
without war-paint, and roused, fearless and at the same time
suggestive, a dark, mysterious glamour on his face, passionate and
remote. A stranger--and so beautiful. Alvina flashed at the piano,
almost in tears. She hated his beauty. It shut her apart. She had
nothing to do with it.

Madame, with her long dark hair hanging in finely-brushed tresses,
her cheek burning under its dusky stain, was another creature. How
soft she was on her feet. How humble and remote she seemed, as
across a chasm from the men. How submissive she was, with an
eternity of inaccessible submission. Her hovering dance round the
dead bear was exquisite: her dark, secretive curiosity, her
admiration of the massive, male strength of the creature, her
quivers of triumph over the dead beast, her cruel exultation, and
her fear that he was not really dead. It was a lovely sight,
suggesting the world's morning, before Eve had bitten any
white-fleshed apple, whilst she was still dusky, dark-eyed, and
still. And then her stealthy sympathy with the white prisoner! Now
indeed she was the dusky Eve tempted into knowledge. Her fascination
was ruthless. She kneeled by the dead _brave_, her husband, as she
had knelt by the bear: in fear and admiration and doubt and
exultation. She gave him the least little push with her foot. Dead
meat like the bear! And a flash of delight went over her, that
changed into a sob of mortal anguish. And then, flickering, wicked,
doubtful, she watched Ciccio wrestling with the bear.

She was the clue to all