de his face, as if unwilling to give a straight answer.

"Yes," he said.

"Play something to me," she cried.

He lifted his face to her, and shook his head slightly.

"Yes do," she said, looking down on him.

And he bent his head to the mandoline, and suddenly began to sing a
Neapolitan song, in a faint, compressed head-voice, looking up at
her again as his lips moved, looking straight into her face with a
curious mocking caress as the muted _voix blanche_ came through his
lips at her, amid the louder quavering of the mandoline. The sound
penetrated her like a thread of fire, hurting, but delicious, the
high thread of his voice. She could see the Adam's apple move in his
throat, his brows tilted as he looked along his lashes at her all the
time. Here was the strange sphinx singing again, and herself between
its paws! She seemed almost to melt into his power.

Madame intervened to save her.

"What, serenade before breakfast! You have strong stomachs, I say.
Eggs and ham are more the question, hein? Come, you smell them,
don't you?"

A flicker of contempt and derision went over Ciccio's face as he
broke off and looked aside.

"I prefer the serenade," said Alvina. "I've had ham and eggs
before."

"You do, hein? Well--always, you won't. And now you must eat the ham
and eggs, however. Yes? Isn't it so?"

Ciccio rose to his feet, and looked at Alvina: as he would have
looked at Gigi, had Gigi been there. His eyes said unspeakable
things about Madame. Alvina flashed a laugh, suddenly. And a
good-humoured, half-mocking smile came over his face too.

They turned to follow Madame into the house. And as Alvina went
before him, she felt his fingers stroke the nape of her neck, and
pass in a soft touch right down her back. She started as if some
unseen creature had stroked her with its paw, and she glanced
swiftly round, to see the face of Ciccio mischievous behind her
shoulder.

"Now I think," said Madame, "that today we all take the same train.
We go by the Great Central as far as the junction, together. Then
you, Allaye, go on to Knarborough, and we leave you until tomorrow.
And now there is not much time."

"I am going to Woodhouse," said Ciccio in French.

"You also! By the train, or the bicycle?"

"Train," said Ciccio.

"Waste so much money?"

Ciccio raised his shoulders slightly.

When breakfast was over, and Alvina had gone to her room, Geoffrey
went out into the back yard, where the bicycles stood