form.

When morning came, and the bleary people pulled the curtains, it was
a clear dawn, and they were in the south of France. There was no
sign of snow. The landscape was half southern, half Alpine. White
houses with brownish tiles stood among almond trees and cactus. It
was beautiful, and Alvina felt she had known it all before, in a
happier life. The morning was graceful almost as spring. She went
out in the corridor to talk to Ciccio.

He was on his feet with his back to the inner window, rolling
slightly to the motion of the train. His face was pale, he had that
sombre, haunted, unhappy look. Alvina, thrilled by the southern
country, was smiling excitedly.

"This is my first morning abroad," she said.

"Yes," he answered.

"I love it here," she said. "Isn't this like Italy?"

He looked darkly out of the window, and shook his head.

But the sombre look remained on his face. She watched him. And her
heart sank as she had never known it sink before.

"Are you thinking of Gigi?" she said.

He looked at her, with a faint, unhappy, bitter smile, but he said
nothing. He seemed far off from her. A wild unhappiness beat inside
her breast. She went down the corridor, away from him, to avoid this
new agony, which after all was not her agony. She listened to the
chatter of French and Italian in the corridor. She felt the
excitement and terror of France, inside the railway carriage: and
outside she saw white oxen slowly ploughing, beneath the lingering
yellow poplars of the sub-Alps, she saw peasants looking up, she saw
a woman holding a baby to her breast, watching the train, she saw
the excited, yeasty crowds at the station. And they passed a river,
and a great lake. And it all seemed bigger, nobler than England. She
felt vaster influences spreading around, the Past was greater, more
magnificent in these regions. For the first time the nostalgia of
the vast Roman and classic world took possession of her. And she
found it splendid. For the first time she opened her eyes on a
continent, the Alpine core of a continent. And for the first time
she realized what it was to escape from the smallish perfection of
England, into the grander imperfection of a great continent.

Near Chambery they went down for breakfast to the restaurant car.
And secretly, she was very happy. Ciccio's distress made her uneasy.
But underneath she was extraordinarily relieved and glad. Ciccio did
not trouble her very much. The sense of the big