ime to open the door as Ciccio tapped. She stood on
the doorstep above him. He looked up, with a faint smile, from under
his black lashes.

"How nice of you to come," she said. But her face was blanched and
tired, without expression. Only her large eyes looked blue in their
tiredness, as she glanced down at Ciccio. He seemed to her far away.

"Madame asks how is Mr. Houghton," he said.

"Father! He died this morning," she said quietly.

"He died!" exclaimed the Italian, a flash of fear and dismay going
over his face.

"Yes--this morning." She had neither tears nor emotion, but just
looked down on him abstractedly, from her height on the kitchen
step. He dropped his eyes and looked at his feet. Then he lifted his
eyes again, and looked at her. She looked back at him, as from
across a distance. So they watched each other, as strangers across a
wide, abstract distance.

He turned and looked down the dark yard, towards the gate where he
could just see the pale grey tire of his bicycle, and the yellow
mud-guard. He seemed to be reflecting. If he went now, he went for
ever. Involuntarily he turned and lifted his face again towards Alvina,
as if studying her curiously. She remained there on the doorstep,
neutral, blanched, with wide, still, neutral eyes. She did not seem to
see him. He studied her with alert, yellow-dusky, inscrutable eyes,
until she met his look. And then he gave the faintest gesture with his
head, as of summons towards him. Her soul started, and died in her. And
again he gave the slight, almost imperceptible jerk of the head,
backwards and sideways, as if summoning her towards him. His face too
was closed and expressionless. But in his eyes, which kept hers, there
was a dark flicker of ascendancy. He was going to triumph over her. She
knew it. And her soul sank as if it sank out of her body. It sank away
out of her body, left her there powerless, soulless.

And yet as he turned, with his head stretched forward, to move away:
as he glanced slightly over his shoulder: she stepped down from the
step, down to his level, to follow him. He went ducking along the
dark yard, nearly to the gate. Near the gate, near his bicycle, was
a corner made by a shed. Here he turned, lingeringly, to her, and
she lingered in front of him.

Her eyes were wide and neutral and submissive, with a new, awful
submission as if she had lost her soul. So she looked up at him,
like a victim. There was a faint smile in his eyes. H