as not
happy. Obstinacy made him stick out the situation.

Alvina and Madame went upstairs. Madame wanted to see the dead
James. She looked at his frail, handsome, ethereal face, and crossed
herself as she wept.

"Un bel homme, cependant," she whispered. "Mort en un jour. C'est
trop fort, voyez!" And she sniggered with fear and sobs.

They went down to Alvina's bare room. Madame glanced round, as she
did in every room she entered.

"This was father's bedroom," said Alvina. "The other was mine. He
wouldn't have it anything but like this--bare."

"Nature of a monk, a hermit," whispered Madame. "Who would have
thought it! Ah, the men, the men!"

And she unpinned her hat and patted her hair before the small
mirror, into which she had to peep to see herself. Alvina stood
waiting.

"And now--" whispered Madame, suddenly turning: "What about this
Ciccio, hein?" It was ridiculous that she would not raise her voice
above a whisper, upstairs there. But so it was.

She scrutinized Alvina with her eyes of bright black glass. Alvina
looked back at her, but did not know what to say.

"What about him, hein? Will you marry him? Why will you?"

"I suppose because I like him," said Alvina, flushing.

Madame made a little grimace.

"Oh yes!" she whispered, with a contemptuous mouth. "Oh
yes!--because you like him! But you know nothing _of_ him--nothing.
How can you like him, not knowing him? He may be a real bad
character. How would you like him then?"

"He isn't, is he?" said Alvina.

"I don't know. I don't know. He may be. Even I, I don't know
him--no, though he has been with me for three years. What is he? He
is a man of the people, a boatman, a labourer, an artist's model. He
sticks to nothing--"

"How old is he?" asked Alvina.

"He is twenty-five--a boy only. And you? You are older."

"Thirty," confessed Alvina.

"Thirty! Well now--so much difference! How can you trust him? How
can you? Why does he want to marry you--why?"

"I don't know--" said Alvina.

"No, and I don't know. But I know something of these Italian men,
who are labourers in every country, just labourers and under-men
always, always down, down, down--" And Madame pressed her spread
palms downwards. "And so--when they have a chance to come up--" she
raised her hand with a spring--"they are very conceited, and they
take their chance. He will want to rise, by you, and you will go
down, with him. That is how it is. I have seen it before--yes--mo